


Galaxies Collide

by Phoenix_Soar



Series: Scattering Stars Like Dust [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), 6000 Years of Slow Burn (Good Omens), Angel/Demon Relationship, Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Aziraphale is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Aziraphale is a Mess (Good Omens), Canon Compliant, Crowley Created the Stars (Good Omens), Crowley is Patient (Good Omens), Crowley is a Sweetheart (Good Omens), First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, Non-Explicit Sex, Requited Love, Requited Unrequited Love, Sensuality, Sexual Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2020-11-08 12:42:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20835647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenix_Soar/pseuds/Phoenix_Soar
Summary: As an Angel, it's impossible for Aziraphale to miss the flashes of love he has been sensing from Crowley since the Beginning. Even harder to miss is the fact that he is very clearly the object of that overwhelming affection.But an Angel and a Demon can't be together. (Can they?)





	1. your hand touching mine, this is how galaxies collide. -sanober khan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Your hand touching mine, this is how galaxies collide. - Sanober Khan_
> 
> I'm still drowning in Good Omens feels, and happy to suffocate. Here's my second Ineffable Husbands fic (did I say earlier this would be a One-Shot? Don't know her whoops)

As most epiphanies go, the whole truth about the first time Aziraphale sensed romantic love doesn’t dawn on him until several years after it happened.

Because epiphanies, by their very nature, are designed to strike well after the deed has transpired.

If one were to ask Aziraphale about it*, he’d respond that the first time he sensed romantic love was, naturally, in the Garden of Eden. Between Adam and Eve.

(* No one asks him, because on one hand, it’s not a question that will occur to humans to ask.On the other, the Archangels he reports back to are very pointedly _not_ curious about Earthly matters. Rather off-putting, that.

There is a third reason, too; the only other supernatural entity on Earth is Hell’s representative, and _that_ speaks for itself.)

The main reason for Aziraphale’s hypothetical response is that, despite Angels’ status as beings of Love, _this_ particular category didn’t exist until humanity came along. To Aziraphale’s knowledge, at least.*

(* He is a very, very intelligent being, but even very, very intelligent beings can on occasion be very, very wrong.)

It is so different from the calm, perpetual hum he feels in Heaven. Up There is an all-encompassing sort of love, full of worship and reverence for the Almighty, and benevolence for Creation. Aziraphale pictures it like a lake, its waters deep as an ocean, but still and steady. Like glass.

_This_ love, though; it gallops, with all the ferocity of a raging river. Humans throw themselves into it like the reckless rush of a waterfall, caught up in the current, drowning in the rapids. Yet, there are calm stretches too, where humans can surface and breathe, while its depths plunge further than the deepest ocean trench.

It’s an odd sort of thing, but it feels Right and Good. For Aziraphale, it becomes a privilege to be Heaven’s agent on Earth*; to have knowledge of this sacred, precious thing his other brethren have no real understanding of.

(* Although no one expressly told him so, Aziraphale gathered that his appointment was _meant_ to be punishment. He assumes it’s because of the whole flaming sword business, though it is odd that the Almighty has never mentioned it again.)

And so Aziraphale keeps an eye on the first humans, his interest in them growing as do their numbers. Then, along comes a mild night, decades after Eden was left behind, when the epiphany which sets this tale in motion strikes our unsuspecting Angel.

Adam and Eve, older now and the latter round with child again, leave their modest cave of a homestead and go for a walk. The surrounding Earth is greener than it had been in those first days, now populated by their children and children’s children. The moon is as bright as the day she was first hung in the star-speckled sky.

Hidden from mortal eyes, Aziraphale watches from atop a dune, a good distance from the sprawling patch of rock and greenery where the humans have made their homes. His gaze, curious and fond, follows Adam and Eve as they, giggling, steal away from the quiet camp.

The reason why becomes clear after they reach a secluded spot, far away from the rest of the humans. The joking stops, the laughter fizzles away, replaced by breathy whispers and soft nothings whispered against skin bared to the moonlight.

‘Didn’t think you Angels were interested in that sort of thing.’

Aziraphale jumps at the low, drawling voice that snakes its way up the dune to join him. It is only then that his distracted senses hone in on a familiar Demonic presence; too late.

Yellow eyes flash at him like twin jewels, the slitted pupils in their centre dilated into fathomless voids. He is wearing his gangly human form again; that, and a smile that reminds Aziraphale too much of his _other_ form.

‘_Hello_, Aziraphale.’ There is a musical lilt to his voice, one that makes him sound playful almost.*

(* Like he is pleased to run into the Angel who is essentially his Enemy. Aziraphale immediately squashes the thought.)

‘Hello,’ returns Aziraphale politely, the perfect picture of civility. 

The Demon raises a thin eyebrow, dark against the pallor of his face. Aziraphale looks back, blinking impassively. Several awkward seconds pass before he realises that the Demon, too, is waiting.

Why is he-?

He had remembered Aziraphale’s name.

Oh. _Oh_.

It takes him a moment to recall the memory. ‘C-Crawly? Crawly. Yes. Hello.’ He wrings his hands together, mortified.*

(* For himself, of course. Not for what Crawly might think about his sloppy manners. Demons don’t care about that sort of thing, surely.)

Crawly presses his lips together. Aziraphale can’t tell if his expression is one of amusement or offence.

‘That was almost a smooth save.’ He is drawling again. ‘I’d call you _charming_-’

Aziraphale starts.

‘- but I daresay voyeurism cancels out that sort of thing in Upstairs’ books.’

‘Voyeu -’ Aziraphale gapes at Crawly, unable to finish.

Crawly grins at him, and there is too much teeth in that smile. He tosses his head, flipping his long mane of curls out of his face. His hair cascades over his shoulders, the messy tresses almost the same hue as his dull robes, the darkness of the night muting the glint of its fire*. His eyes never leave Aziraphale.

(* It will be millennia before Aziraphale admits it, even to himself, but in the long stretches of night, his idle mind sometimes goes back to it - that alluring catch of sunshine in hair a shade of red Aziraphale has never seen before.

He wonders if it will feel the way it looks - burning, like hellfire. Or soft, like light glancing off the shiny skin of an apple. He usually stops his thoughts there.)

‘I wasn’t _spying_ on them,’ Aziraphale finally manages, drawing himself up defensively. ‘I was sent to - oh, this is ridiculous. I was sent to watch over them, and bless them, and, and, conjure a few miracles when they need a little nudge -’

Crawly’s smile is widening* with every word out of Aziraphale’s mouth. The Angel huffs in irritation.

(* If that was even possible.)

‘Oh and I suppose _you_ look away, do you? Every time that they, they…’ He trails off, suddenly embarrassed.

‘They what? You need to be specific, I can’t read your mind.’ Crawly sounds delighted and, oh, he is just trying to vex Aziraphale, isn’t he.

‘You know what I mean!’ Aziraphale waves a hand in the general direction of Adam and Eve, very pointedly not looking at them. ‘When the humans, when they, they, mate.’

‘Mate,’ Crawly repeats. His grin has lost none of its brilliance.

Aziraphale realises that his word choice is more applicable to the growing collection of animals that have joined the humans on Earth.

‘Coupling,’ he rectifies quickly. ‘When they are coupling.’

‘The world is yet young but you’re already old-fashioned, aren’t you?’ Crawly exclaims. He leans towards him, just a smidge. ‘Are you not aware of the more _interesting_ term* the humans have come up with for _coupling_?’

(* Although the first humans, and the two otherworldly beings in this story, are currently speaking a language lost to the sands of time, this “interesting term” translates best _exactly_ to the word you’re thinking of right now.)

‘And I suppose that’s _your_ doing, is it?’ Aziraphale sniffs. ‘Adding vulgarity to language.’

Crawly laughs, throwing his head back as he does. Aziraphale thinks he should be offended, but somehow, Crawly doesn’t sound like he is making fun of him.

‘Oh, humans are plenty creative on their own. I didn’t have to do much.’

Aziraphale eyes him suspiciously, but then it occurs to him that Crawly has led their conversation on quite the detour.

‘You avoided my question,’ says the Angel, pursing his lips.

‘Hmm?’

‘You accused _me_ of voyeurism. Are you telling me _you_ never observed them, then? When they …’ He thinks for a moment, searching for the more affectionate term the humans used for that act.

‘When they made love?’ There. A much better phrase that surely Crawly can’t mock him for.

‘Well, I _am_ a Demon,’ replies Crawly slyly.

Aziraphale turns away, rolling his eyes.*

(* The humans have been wearing this expression for years now, exasperation being very much a thing among them.

But this is the first time an ethereal being has ever pulled this face. Aziraphale will never realise.)

They fall silent for a while then, gazing out across the quiet dunes, where the sands give way to trees and rock and water. Life. Aziraphale can still see Adam and Eve in his peripheral vision, but he carefully avoids focussing on their tryst. It is, of course, purely a natural thing for humans to do. But Crawly’s teasing has put him on edge, embarrassment still simmering inside him.

‘I saw you, you know.’

Blinking in mild surprise, Aziraphale turns to the Demon. ‘Pardon?’

Crawly is eyeing him intensely. Aziraphale gets the odd feeling that he has been, this whole time.

‘In the Garden. You were watching them. The first time.’

‘I …’ Aziraphale feels his cheeks burn. Hmm. What a curious reaction. ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.’

The Demon has crossed his arms over his chest, but his entire body is angled towards Aziraphale. The Angel squirms under the weight of such focussed attention.

‘You do. I was watching _you_.’

Aziraphale feels a shiver dance down his spine* at the soft inflection, just barely there, in Crawly’s tone.

(* Such odd things, these human corporations.)

He knows what Crawly is referring to and drops pretences. ’Well, of course I saw them! I was tasked with guarding the Garden, and by extension, them.’

The Demon lifts an eyebrow and Aziraphale wretchedly wonders if he is thinking the same thing the Angel is.*

(* He is not. Aziraphale is thinking, guiltily, about how he’d rather made a mess of the whole apple tree duty stint.

Crawly is thinking about something a bit more … salacious. Aziraphale is at the centre of that thought.)

‘Weren’t you curious about it?’ Crawly tilts his head, just so, towards the humans still caught up in their passionate embrace. ‘About what it means?’

Aziraphale _had_ been curious, the first time he saw Adam and Eve come together like that. But it didn’t take long to figure out what was happening.

Sniffing, he tells Crawly as much. ‘I did find it strange at first,’ he admits, ‘but I knew what it meant. In theory.’

‘And what drives them to it?’ Crawly presses on.

‘Why, to propagate the human species, of course,’ says Aziraphale in the mildly surprised tones of someone voicing the obvious.

Crawly smirks. ‘Propagate?’ Aziraphale gets the feeling he is being mocked for his choice of word again.* ‘Is that _all_ there is to it?’

(* He is.)

‘Well, what other purpose does it serve?’ asks Aziraphale reasonably.

‘C’mon, I thought your lot can sense these things?’

The Demon’s deliberate vagueness is turning out to be equal parts exhausting and irritating. Aziraphale says waspishly, ‘What things, pray tell?’

Crawly exhales loudly, blowing out his cheeks as if he were the one being put upon.

‘_Desire_.’

Aziraphale blinks. ’Desire?’

‘Yes. You were watching them the first time. Didn’t you pick up on it?’

‘I, we … Angels sense _love_, not … ’ Aziraphale stops, frowning as he thinks back to that particular day in the Garden. 

The awareness that strikes him then leaves him speechless. It hadn’t occurred to him until this very moment just how much the romantic love he’d sensed from Adam and Eve was - is - intertwined with sexual desire. The more Aziraphale ponders, the more he realises he must have been perceiving both this whole time; the love as vast and present as the ocean, the desire a lurking current until it surfaces, as it always does, with vigour and fire.

‘I … I suppose you’re right,’ says Aziraphale at last. ‘I must have picked up on it.’

Something shifts in the air between them. Like a change in the wind, but something far more subtle. Aziraphale is suddenly acutely aware of Crawly’s eyes on him, unblinking and piercing.

‘Did you ever feel anything like that?’ asks the Demon very quietly.

A startled laugh escapes Aziraphale. ‘How absurd. Why would I?’

Crawly shifts from one foot to the other. ‘Is it absurd, though? Such feelings clearly exist.’ He gives a little jerk of his head towards Adam and Eve.

‘Yes, between humans,’ says Aziraphale impatiently. ‘Why would I…?’

The Angel trails off, his gaze settling on Crawly. The Demon seems … odd. His arms, still folded across his chest, look so taut they give the impression that he’s trying to simultaneously shatter himself and hold the pieces together.

‘Are you alright?’ A thought occurs to him. ‘Do you … do _you_ feel that way? About …?’ 

_About who? _Aziraphale doesn’t know how to finish. Crawly definitely looks uncomfortable now, and the question Aziraphale just asked feels utterly strange on his tongue.

A question that need never be asked because, _of course not_. How could Crawly feel that way? Demons don’t feel. Especially not love.

_Right?_

As if to validate the thoughts flitting wildly in Aziraphale’s mind, Crawly mutters, ‘Don’t be stupid. ‘M a Demon.’

But he’s frowning, his face turned away from Aziraphale to glare darkly across the dunes.

Something feels perturbingly wrong about the whole situation. Aziraphale bites his lip, hesitating just a moment before blurting, ‘Why did you bring this up?’

Crawly turns, his eyes flashing in the moonlight.

‘I was curious, alright,’ he snaps. ‘I saw the humans in the Garden and I saw _you_ and I thought -’ He cuts himself off; looks away again. ‘I, I was curious. That’s me. Always curious, always asking _questions_.’ The bitterness in his voice is thick and palpable. 

Aziraphale wrings his hands together, nonplussed.

He doesn’t know what possesses him to admit what he does next, but he finds himself stammering, ‘I - I wouldn’t mind, I think.’

Crawly’s head swivels round to gape at him, his pupils blown wide. ‘What?’ he croaks.

‘To feel it,’ Aziraphale explains. His cheeks are growing hot again. Why do they keep doing that? ‘From what I’ve seen between the humans, I can tell it’s a rather, well, special thing to feel. I’m … I’m curious too.’

Crawly is staring.

Unnerved, Aziraphale blusters on, ‘Though I suppose that is a bit ridiculous. It’s just humans down here, after all. Even if I were to experience such a feeling, who is there to possibly feel that way abou…?’

Aziraphale forgets every word he’s saying as sheer _emotion_ saturates his senses, sudden and without warning. It washes over him, like how the waves of the ocean, created by that first storm, crash into the distant shore; a powerful and unrelenting force that nearly knocks him off his feet.

The feeling settles into every pore of his corporeal body, soaks into the very essence of his celestial matter, before it withdraws as abruptly as it came. Aziraphale grapples to latch on to it, but it evades his metaphysical touch almost manically - as if the emotion had spilt from its owner’s heart by careless accident, until its holder became aware and scrambled to yank it back and lock it away again.

And then he feels nothing but the cool night air again, and Aziraphale aches at the emptiness left behind - because that glorious gush of emotion had been for _him_.

That fire, that passion, that all-consuming _love_ had been for _Aziraphale_.

And for all that it had barely lasted a second - a small infinity - he can pinpoint the source of that love with absolute clarity.

Aziraphale stares, frozen, at Crawly.

The Demon doesn’t say a word, his face a carefully blank canvass. His slitted pupils are so dilated, the yellow of his eyes are but thin rings around them.

Aziraphale opens his mouth, and closes it again. Words fail him. He is aware, vaguely, of the organ in his chest beating out a frantic rhythm.

‘Crawly…’

Before Aziraphale can say anything else*, the Demon breaks his silence. ‘You’re right. It’s ridiculous.’

(* What he would have said is anyone’s guess. Well, the Lord knows, but She isn’t sharing with anyone.)

‘Crawly,’ Aziraphale repeats, aghast.

The Demon looks at him, a corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk that carries none of the mischief it did earlier. ‘A silly human experience. Messy, too. Definitely beneath you, Angel.’

‘I didn’t -’

‘Though I still stand by my voyeurism comment.’ Crawly gives a short laugh, light and airy. ‘You watched them in the Garden, and you watch them even now.’

‘And you watched me, you said,’ Aziraphale retorts before he can stop himself. _You watched me, while I watched the humans make love._

Crawly has stopped grinning. ‘I did.’

_You watched me. You wanted me. You lov -_

The last thought lingers, half-formed and tormented, in his mind. He can’t bring himself to complete it. Because it can’t be, can it? It is antithetical to everything he was taught.

The Fallen are bereft of Her Grace; the capability to love. Crawly is Fallen.

And yet, Aziraphale _knows_ the nature of the emotion he sensed just now; knows with a certainty unique to him for he is the only Angel to have ever perceived this type of love.

A love he’d assumed, until moments ago, that only humans are capable of feeling.

A love he’d sensed, beyond a shadow of a doubt, from the Demon standing beside him.

With the sickening feeling of one who has had the ground ripped out from under their feet*, Aziraphale realises he has no idea what to say, do, or even think_._

(* A feeling that, millennia later, humans will describe as “my life is a lie”.)

_You watched me in the Garden. You wanted me in the Garden._

He’s watching him now. He wants him now.

Aziraphale meets Crawly’s stare, wrings his shaking hands together, and finally allows the thought to form.

_You loved me in the Garden._

Crawly doesn’t look away. 

… _And you love me now_.

For a terrifying, breathless moment, Aziraphale is taken back to Eden, to that day when the humans consummated their bond. Only, it is not the joining of two mortals he witnesses in his mind’s eye this time, but that of an ethereal and occult being.

‘Aziraphale.’

The sound of his name jolts him back to the present. He starts visibly.

Crawly is frowning now. ‘Whatever you’re thinking, stop.’

Aziraphale’s jaw goes slack. ‘What?’

‘I can almost hear you working yourself up into a panic. Calm down. Nothing happened.’

‘Crawly,’ Aziraphale begins, not knowing how to even begin to say what is on his mind. ‘That was … just now, that was…’

‘Aziraphale.’

He falls silent.

‘Nothing. Happened.’ Crawly bites out the words through gritted teeth and Aziraphale swallows, nodding.

The tension lingers in the air between them until Crawly takes his leave. He throws a lazy farewell at Aziraphale over his shoulder, with forced nonchalance that fools no one.

As Aziraphale watches Crawly traipse back down the dune, he imagines, with mortification and sudden unprecedented _want_, bare limbs tangled together on soft grass, beneath the shade of a tree laden with apples. Hair kissed by Heaven’s light, and curls aflame like Hellfire.

And the Garden grows warm with the love* emanating from within.

(* Aziraphale is correct that the first time he sensed romantic love was in the Garden of Eden. But, as he has come to realise from the most unexpected epiphany, the humans were not the only ones radiating with it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Though the first chapter is about when Aziraphale first realised Crowley's love for him, I don't intend to make this fic a full-on romp through history (unlike my first Aziraphale-touches-Crowley's-hair fic). There probably will be historical references here and there, though. 
> 
> Second part might take a few days, as I'm leaving on a work trip. But I'll try to have that out as soon as I can. 
> 
> In the meantime, please do share your thoughts; they make my day!
> 
> Come spazz with me about these dorks on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/RV_Phoenix_Soar) or [Tumblr](https://phoenix-soar.tumblr.com)


	2. you have me. until the last star in the galaxy dies, you have me. -annie kaufman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me longer than I thought to update this fic, yikes. <s>In my defence, I did sit down to work on it and ended up banging out other GO fics.</s> But here we are, and thank you to everyone who read, commented and left kudos on the first part! <3
> 
> (Did I say this fic would be only two parts? Yes.  
Did I say this wouldn’t be a romp through 6000 years of history? Yes.  
Was I aware, at the time of announcing, that I always lose control of my fics anyway? Also yes.)

In the Beginning, there was a Serpent draped across a branch, watching events unfold in Eden. Events set off by his mischief.

He hadn’t known what to expect after the apple, and he observes with increasing fascination the lascivious looks that cross the humans’ countenances; how the awareness of their own nakedness dawns with their newfound Knowledge; how they reach for each other.

The catch of sunlight in hair as fair as anything is what distracts him. The Serpent turns his head and gapes, startled, at the Angel standing amongst the trees a distance away.

The Guardian of the Eastern Gate.*

(* Not that he’s ever seen the Angel in person before, but this _is_ the eastern part of the Garden.

Plus he’s holding a flaming sword. Beelzebub had yelled no less than six warnings about that flashy piece before sending him up.)

The Serpent slithers forward on the branch, nosing aside a stubborn leaf so he can have an unhindered view.

The Angel’s face is full of open _curiosity_.

The Serpent freezes.

It is an expression he will recognise anywhere; knows it as intimately as the one he’s seen upon his own countenance.

It is not a look meant for Heaven’s flock to wear - unless said flock fancied a million-lightyear dive into a pool of boiling sulphur.

_This one is … not like the others._*

(*_Is he like … me?_)

The Serpent flicks his tongue*, distressed and so very intrigued.

(*If he were in his human corporation, he would’ve gulped.)

Slithering forward again, the Serpent takes in the Angel, somewhat enchanted by the glint of sunshine in wispy hair and those softly rounded cheeks.

The Angel doesn’t move a muscle, but the look of curiosity on his face is deepening. He appears _fascinated_, almost in awe.

Not unlike the Serpent himself when he first saw the humans.

With another flick of his tongue, the Serpent wonders if the Angel is interested in the strange new things the humans are experiencing.

Then he wonders what it would be like to experience such a thing for himself.

Experience it together.

The thought, appearing out of nowhere, strikes him so hard it blocks out everything else for a blinding moment - and then he sees the Angel start, blinking rapidly.

With a shock of fear, the Serpent tenses. The Angel has sensed him.*

(*As for _what_ the Angel sensed from him, that will take quite some time for the Serpent to come to terms with.)

But the Angel doesn’t look his way. Hardly seeming to suspect the presence of another otherworldly being, and indeed looking even _more_ curious, he focuses harder on the humans.

Their bodies are intertwined, voices raised together in a dual chorus that outshines every memory the Serpent retains of celestial harmonies.

It is in that moment that the Serpent imagines what the Angel might sound like, laid out on a bed of sun-dappled moss, bare limbs spread in invitation and pearly wings curled upwards to the skies.

_Oh_, he thinks.

Too late, it occurs to him that he’s just planted the seeds of a hopeless fantasy* whose branches would not only bear no fruit, but whose roots he can never dig out again.

(* It doesn’t help the slightest when rain is invented later and the Angel - _Aziraphale_ \- stretches one of those pearly wings over his head.

He has a lovely voice.

_Oh_, the Serpent thinks again. Then he thinks another, more uncouth word.)

~***~

It is one thing to know what romantic love is, as sensed between humans.

It is another to know romantic love as directed at one’s own self.

And when that love comes from a Demon, the whole thing becomes a disaster of unprecedented proportions.

No, perhaps that’s a touch too harsh, Aziraphale muses, on one of the countless nights he spends thinking about that wave of emotion he felt emanating from Crawly.

A _disaster_ was the Great War, when Aziraphale had watched, heartsick, as millions of his brethren Fell, white wings burning and their cries a never-ending echo in the skies.*

(* He had wondered whether the rest of the Angels tasted ash in their mouths like he did, or their weapons felt like dead weight in their hands like his sword did.)

The discovery of Crawly’s, well, _untoward_ feelings is difficult to categorise. But it’s not a _disaster_, surely.

An anomaly, perhaps.

Whether that anomaly is good or bad - the jury is still out, as humans will come to say much later.

Aziraphale’s first thought, naturally, is “bad”. Crawly is a _Demon. _If that isn’t Bad with an uppercase B, then Aziraphale doesn’t know what is.

The thought lingers with the sort of stubbornness exclusive to divine doctrine learnt by rote. But it never sticks because, well, _love_. Love is Good. Aziraphale has never been more sure of anything.

So what does that leave him with?

A Demon (bad) who loves (good).

A Demon who loves Aziraphale, specifically.

‘Oh,’ he murmurs to himself, as he does during moments when the sheer implication of this hits him.*

(* One might assume such a moment would be a one-off, but for an Angel who can _dither_ like no one’s business, the moment is recurring and frequent.)

Aziraphale frets about it for far longer than he’d like to admit. Months pass after his meeting with Crawly that fateful night, stretching into years swallowed up by decades, and still he frets.

It is nigh on a century later that Aziraphale happens across Crawly again. The number of humans has multiplied exponentially, the world is a little more lived in, and Crawly looks right at home by the fire he is sharing with a group of nomads crossing a yet unnamed plain in search of greener pastures.

Crawly greets Aziraphale’s quiet approach with a look of surprise that smooths into a nonchalant smile. He waves him over with a carefree gesture. His eyes gleam golden in the dual light of the fire and moon.

There is nothing in his manner that hints at discomfort as he casually introduces Aziraphale* to his human companions; no disquiet as Aziraphale accepts his invitation to share his log; no agitation as he bestows his full attention on Aziraphale while the humans continue on with their modest dinner as if a stranger hasn’t just joined them.**

(* As if the two of them were friends, no less. _What nerve_, Aziraphale thinks, aware of the heat in his cheeks which has nothing to do with the fire the humans are sitting around.

** Aziraphale suspects the involvement of a little demonic miracle.)

In fact, there is nothing in the way Crawly drawls, ‘Fancy bumping into you in the middle of nowhere. Trying a more direct approach to thwarting my wiles, are ya’, to suggest that he feels anything outside of the ordinary towards Aziraphale.

Or feels anything at all.

Aziraphale is flabbergasted.*

(* And, if he were more honest with himself - which he isn’t and won’t be for a very long time - _hurt_.)

Even after a hundred years, the memory of that overwhelming love he’d felt from Crawly burns in him. How … how can there be nothing now? How does such a feeling just vanish?

_Perhaps_, Aziraphale thinks, his thoughts scrambling to make sense of things while staunchly overlooking the aberrant sadness welling up inside him, _it is the effect of his demonic nature_.

That must be it. Highly unusual though it was for an infernal denizen of Hell to have felt love at all, of course they couldn’t have nurtured it. A century is more than enough time to fizzle that out, no doubt.

Ah, well. This is the way it ought to be. Everything back in order with the Universe.

Except for the suffocating feeling weighing down on his chest. Furrowing his brows, Aziraphale glares at the flickering shadows on the ground.

He should be relieved.

He isn’t.

‘Aziraphale?’

Startled and immediately embarrassed, Aziraphale realises the Demon must have been engaging in a one-sided conversation with him while he was distracted.

Crawly is watching him, an eyebrow raised. If Aziraphale didn’t know better, he’d say the Demon seemed concerned.

He knows better.*

(* _Do you_, whispers a voice Aziraphale cannot quite silence in his head.)

‘Y-yes?’

‘Hng. Didn’t think joking about wiles would throw you off so,’ mutters Crawly. ‘You do know _joke_, yes? Another odd little thing humans invented when they were bored.’

‘Of course I know what a _jo _-! Oh, very funny.’

‘Well, yes, funny _is_ the general idea.’ Crawly’s lips are drawn back in a familiar grin, one with too much teeth and mischief stitched across his drink-stained mouth.

It’s hard to look away from.

‘Speaking of which, you know what else humans enjoy doing when they’re bored?’

‘What?’

‘Oh, _you’d_ know! I would think you quite the expert on the subject, a sly voyeur such as yourself.’

It takes the Angel a moment. ’Crawly!’ he cries, not so much offended as mortified.

‘A joke, Aziraphale, _joke_,’ Crawly guffaws.

His mischievous grin lingers even after his laughter fades and Aziraphale abruptly realises why it’s familiar - it was how Crawly looked when he was teasing Aziraphale during their last meeting.

A grin just this side of not-mocking, sauntering that fine line between impish and diabolical.

The organ in his chest gives a funny little spasm.

And then it starts beating in earnest when Crawly half turns on the log towards him, leaning in closer. Already sat beside each other as they are, Crawly’s movement puts him right in Aziraphale’s space, his face close enough that the Angel can trace every detail, from the elegantslope of his nose to those high cheekbones.

Face half illuminated by the fire, the other pale in the moonlight, Crawly makes for a picture as captivating as it is eerie. The deep red of his hair, long and curling, glows in the golden ambiance.

_Firelight_, Aziraphale thinks before he can catch himself, _becomes him better than any other_. Appropriate, considering where Crawly is from.

The thought makes him shiver, caught between the instinct to recoil and the urge - sudden and blindsiding - to close the distance between them.

‘So…’ Crawly is speaking, his voice a low purr. Swallowing, Aziraphale tries to focus on his words. ‘What _were_ you thinking so hard about earlier that you practically ignored me? Not very Angelic that, hmm?’

‘Oh, I … I was, um,’ Aziraphale stammers, blinking rapidly.

Unlike Crawly, who is decidedly not blinking. He rarely does, now that Aziraphale thinks about it, but the intensity of his stare leaves the Angel flustered.

His eyes are almost completely yellow, the flames shining in them like the stars above.

’S-stars!’ Aziraphale blusters. ‘I was, uh, thinking about the - the stars! The weather’s been lovely lately, hasn’t it? We can see so many stars! Not a single raincloud and - and all the stars!’

Crawly has lifted an eyebrow again, the sardonic gesture speaking volumes to how convincing he finds Aziraphale’s lie. But he humours him, tipping his head back to observe the endless firmament stretching over the sparse plains.

‘Moonlight’s in the way. We’d see more otherwise,’ Crawly mutters.

‘The moon will set in a couple of hours.’ Aziraphale looks to the west.

‘Earth really is the best seat to watch the stars…’ Crawly’s voice grows unexpectedly soft, losing the easygoing mischief he had teased Aziraphale with earlier.

When the Angel looks back at him, Crawly is wearing a small, wistful smile Aziraphale has never seen before. His eyes are fixed on the diamond-speckled heavens.

‘You might think up-close would be better, but then they’d all look the same. A few different colours maybe, if you could stand their brightness enough to look past it, but no. The stars are meant to be appreciated like this, from far away … all of them together, at once. That’s how their beauty is designed.’

Aziraphale stares at Crawly. He has never heard anyone speak about anything in Creation like this; not his brethren and he certainly had not expected it from a Demon.

‘Of course, I made a few exceptions. Like the nebulae. Oh, I had fun with those! You definitely need a closer look to see all the shapes and colours. I can’t wait for the day humans discover those.’

Grinning broadly, Crawly turns to Aziraphale. ‘Maybe I’ll take you to see them one day.’

For a breathless moment, Aziraphale just gapes back at him. Then Crawly’s smile turns to stone, as if he’s just realised what he’s been saying, and Aziraphale - the clogs finally click into place and he blurts,

‘You were the one who made the stars?!’

Crawly stiffens.

‘Y-you made the stars?’ Aziraphale repeats, a little numbly this time.

Crawly looks away. ’No, I - not all of them. I … helped.’

‘I had no idea,’ Aziraphale exclaims. ‘Did you know humans enjoy making shapes out of them? Bit ridiculous, if you ask me, but oh! They’re trying to figure out how to use the stars to navigate. Rather clever, that. Did you make them for that purpose or …?’ He trails off.

Crawly is sitting still as a statue*. His expression is closed off, gaze locked on the ground.

(* Though not invented yet, when the art of sculpture becomes all the rage amongst humans, Crawly - to be known as Crowley then - will covertly sit for two Belgian brothers-cum-sculptors commissioned to sculpt Lucifer for a cathedral. Neither brother will realise their model is the same nonperson.

Later, the sculptures’ namesake will laugh his tail off at the Church’s scandalised reaction to the first statue. Crowley will personally think the second one, is more provocative. Aziraphale will tell a smug Crowley that both are simply ostentatious, but in his heart he’ll know that neither comes close to capturing Crowley’s true beauty.)

Aziraphale is perplexed. But then tendrils of shame shoot through his bout of excitement as it occurs to him, belatedly, just how insensitive he sounded.

Crawly obviously doesn’t wish to talk about Before. _Of course not._ _Who would?_

Peering up at his companion through his lashes, Aziraphale is reminded of a simple yet staggering fact that, he’s just come to realise, he overlooks - Crawly wasn’t always Fallen.

He had been an Angel once, same as Aziraphale.

No, not quite the same. Aziraphale never hung the stars.

His eyes linger on Crawly’s hands, his long slender fingers. They are elegant even in the way they lie stiffly on the tops of his thighs. Aziraphale can imagine them weaving stardust into the dark fabric of the ether.

He dares to wonder, just for a moment, who Crawly used to be.

They sit quietly for a long minute, the only sounds the crackling of the fire and chatter of the humans, who are still paying no attention to the Angel and Demon amongst them.

The longer the silence drags on, the more Aziraphale fidgets.

Crawly may not want to talk about it, but it feels wrong to leave such a significant thing unacknowledged. Aziraphale ought to say something.

‘They - they’re so beautiful.’

The comment, uttered out of the blue, grabs Crawly’s attention.

‘The stars that you … they’re enchanting.’

The words feel small. Inadequate. Aziraphale tugs at the neckline of his loose robes, feeling hot. Perhaps he ought not to have said anything -

He almost gasps, back snapping straight as a rod as love - pure, unadulterated _love_ \- slams into him. It is as distinctive as the first time he consciously sensed it, nearly a hundred years ago on top of a moonlit dune.

Lips parted and breath shallow, he meets Crawly’s eyes slowly.

Crawly is not quite smiling at him, but his expression is infinitely soft. Tender. Not unlike how he’d looked earlier when he spoke of the stars he had breathed into existence, those behemoths of beauty and guidance he’d adorned the skies with and left for humans to map.

But, oh, the stars and all their beauty pale in the face of this exceedingly straightforward, exceedingly _complicated_, emotion that has Aziraphale cocooned in what feels like the warmest of embraces. It’s overwhelming in its ardour, in the way it burrows into every part of him, corporal and celestial, and Aziraphale can swear that it is stronger than it was before.

_Oh_, he thinks.

How can Crawly’s love for him be stronger than before?

He cannot even begin to fathom an answer before the feeling starts to recede, just like last time.

_No_, Aziraphale thinks desperately before he can stop himself. He still remembers how _empty_ he’d felt that night, when that sense of all-consuming love had been ripped away.

He doesn’t want that again.

But even as his ethereal senses fumble to hold on to the fading feeling, he comprehends the true meaning of what just happened - Crawly hasn’t stopped loving him. He loves Aziraphale even more than he did a century ago, if that tidal wave of passion just now is anything to go by.

Crawly just happens to be very, very good at keeping his feelings under wraps. Evidently.

The Demon clears his throat. His affectionate expression has dimmed to something more wary, but he isn’t looking away and that sense of love hasn’t entirely faded away either.

It lingers in the air around them, like a soft erratic hum in the background, no longer overwhelming but still present.

And it dawns on Aziraphale that he quite likes it.

_Oh_, he thinks again.

It should horrify him, the very idea of finding a Demon’s regard for him appealing. He’s a Principality of the Lord! He was sent to guide and bless and protect. He is a being of Love.

A being of Love … who has never felt from any Angel what he’s feeling from this Demon sitting beside him.

He doesn’t think he ever will.

It’s the single most constant, powerful feeling he senses from humans to this day, and to have someone feel the same towards him is … precious.

Heaven help him, but he doesn’t want to lose this.

‘Crawly,’ Aziraphale murmurs, unthinkingly.

As the Demon, still wary, nods his head to indicate he’s listening, Aziraphale realises he has no idea what to say.

When there is nothing forthcoming, Crawly finally speaks. ‘Aziraphale, I’m…’

Aziraphale’s eyes widen. Is he about to -?

‘I’m not … what I mean is,’ Crawly coughs awkwardly. ‘Well, y’know … nothing happened.’

Aziraphale stills. It is as if Crawly’s sharp parting words from a century ago has echoed down the passage of time, to strike him again.

He understood what those words meant back then and he understands what they mean now.

‘Oh,’ he whispers, eyes downcast.

It oughtn’t to shake him. Nothing can ever come of this, this thing Crawly feels for Aziraphale. An Angel and a Demon? It is laughable. Even Crawly seems to know perfectly well that there is no path to take here; no use in acknowledging it.

So then … why does Aziraphale feel no joy, no relief?

He places a hand on his chest, feeling the odd little organ in there pounding away like it wishes to escape his physical body and hide away in the stars.

Crawly created the stars…

‘Angel.’

Aziraphale looks up.

‘I’m glad you like them,’ he says, voice rough.

Aziraphale exhales, ears warming as he catches on to what Crawly is referring to. There is nothing left to say and all he can manage is a shy smile.

For a quiet second, Crawly smiles back, his face gentle.

Then he shifts on the log, away from Aziraphale, with a lazy drawl of, ‘So, about those jokes. Wanna hear one? The humans have a wicked sense of humour.’

‘Oh, um, certainly. Wait … when you say wicked, you don’t mean _inappropriate_, do you?’

The old grin is back. ‘Aww c’mon, Angel. I saved the best _mating_ jokes especially for you!’

‘_Crawly_!’

As the Demon laughs gaily, Aziraphale can’t hold the disapproving frown for long, his mouth curving up despite himself.

And so they talk deeper into the night, surrounded by the camaraderie of the humans. The moon dips beyond the distant horizon and, just like Crawly had said, the stars begin to shine brighter than ever*, benign and wondrous above them.

(* So does the _love_, still there, still warm like an embrace.

And Aziraphale allows himself to accept that, for all that nothing can come of it, it is not unwelcome. He can appreciate and enjoy it like this, from a distance.

Just like the stars.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Istg sometimes I want to shake Crowley for keeping such a _squirming-at-your-feet-ish name_ for four fucking millennia. Every time I write something that takes place before Golgotha = _Crawly_. Why is he like this~
> 
> Yooo did y'all get the [statue](https://i.imgur.com/aY7pza1.jpg) reference XD When I first [learned](https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/03/13/the-famous-statue-of-lucifer-was-installed-in-st-pauls-cathedral-in-liege-after-the-previous-statue-was-declared-too-seductive/) about it, I thought it was hilarious and that Crowley absolutely would've had a hand in it.
> 
> I'm sorry about the wait, but I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Drop a comment and let me know what you thought?


	3. i have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night. - sarah williams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are historical references in this chapter, including one that touches lightly on a historical figure's suicide. Nothing heavy or graphic, but just in case anyone needs a trigger warning~

Once the truth of it is out there, it is out there for good, Aziraphale finds.

_It_ is not always so blatant, knocking the breath out of lungs that don’t need air or agitating a heart that doesn’t need to beat. Oh, but it is always _present_.

Because it turns out, for all that Crawly has mastered the skill of masking his emotions, he doesn’t always bother to do so - not after Aziraphale has clearly caught on and chose _not_ to smite him back to Hell for it.*

(* Aziraphale doesn’t know if that’s the real reason Crawly becomes lax with his formerly iron grip on his feelings, but the Angel isn’t complaining.)

His love is like a third presence that makes itself known when the two of them meet, their paths always crossing* at one point or the other, without fail.

(* As if their meetings were preordained. _Ineffable_, Aziraphale thinks once and blushes so hard that Crawly wonders aloud whether introducing alcoholic drinks to an occult** being was not such a smashing idea.

** ‘Ethereal. Angels are _ethereal_,’ Aziraphale corrects him firmly once he has regained enough sense of self.)

The feeling hovers between them, above them, around them, not so much an intruder as the elephant in the room. And while their mutual unspoken agreement to never acknowledge its presence - a lot of unspoken not-speaking there - breeds moments of awkwardness, not once does Aziraphale genuinely wish it would not be there.

Crawly’s love is as warm as the fire they’d once sat around and as wondrous as the stars Crawly had regaled him with, and Aziraphale welcomes it with all the nonchalance of a cat aloofly pretending not to enjoy a good petting.*

(* The Angel, unlike most felines, is not as good at putting on nonchalant airs as he likes to imagine.)

In the early days, which is to say the first millennium or so after they spoke of the stars, Aziraphale periodically attempts to analyse the nature of Crawly’s love. He picks apart its nuances and compares it to human romantic love, as one might rub fabrics between their fingers to compare their differing textures; their quality.

He arrives at no definitive conclusions.

Crawly’s love is like human love in its undeniable swell of passion and attraction and enchantment.

And yet, his love is different from humans too, in some manner undefinable to Aziraphale. As if it would make a different sound from that of humans’, if love had sounds. Or carry a different smell.

It is a difficult, abstract thing to visualise, and Aziraphale initially wonders, with that part of his mind that automatically turns to Heaven’s teachings, whether the disparity he senses in Crawly’s love might not be the result of his infernal nature.*

_But perhaps not_, Aziraphale learns to think over the years, as they meet more and more frequently - as he begins to ascertain that Crawly’s love wouldn’t sound like tortured screams. Nor smell of sulphur and brimstone. It just wouldn’t.

The only definitive conclusion Aziraphale can draw is that Crawly’s love _is_.

It’s real and tangible and present. Against all odds. It _is_.

And Aziraphale drowns in it at times, even when it’s nothing but a soft hum in the air, a benediction like nothing he’s ever heard fall from an Angel’s lips.

It’s harder not to drown when Crawly inevitably forgets himself and that hum becomes the tidal wave Aziraphale had first encountered, washing over and suffocating every celestial nerve ending within him. It doesn’t always occur with their every meeting, but as the centuries slip by, Aziraphale cannot help but collect these moments, one by one, storing them away in carefully sealed corners of his heart, to be taken out again later and admired, with a drop of shame and an ocean of delight, in the darkness of night.*

(* More often than not, by the light of the stars. _His stars_, Aziraphale whispers to himself, softly, like a confession he breathes to the sky.)

Crawly drowns him again when they meet for the first time after the Great Flood, so many decades after they stepped off the ark and parted ways. There is a rainbow in the sky again, which Crawly wrinkles his nose at and Aziraphale pretends not to notice. But the earth is green once more and there is the laughter of children in the air as the two of them stroll along the bank of the Euphrates.

‘I inspired a local fisherman to teach children how to swim in his spare time.’ Aziraphale, for the existence of him, cannot say what drove him to offer that information to Crawly. He wrings his hands together in front of him as he takes in Crawly’s raised eyebrow.

‘Rather low bar Upstairs has set for blessings and whatnot, eh?’ he says sceptically, lightly kicking a stone into the water as they walk together.

‘It wasn’t on Heaven’s orders,’ Aziraphale mutters. ‘I … had a miracle or two to spare.’

Crawly fixes him with a piercing stare and Aziraphale has to look away. ‘Hardly counts as a miracle anyway. But should it turn out ideally, the fisherman will inspire more to do the same, and his pupils will pass on the skill as well.’

‘And what, create a community that takes to water like … well, whatever takes to water?’

‘Exactly. Whole communities in the long run.’ Aziraphale smiles. ‘Quite a vital survival skill, swimming, isn’t it?’

Crawly stops walking. ‘And you think that would save them if the world was drowned again?’

‘I, no, I … it, it won’t happen again,’ Aziraphale stammers, shaken at how bluntly Crawly has whittled his evasive words to the point. ‘And, and, I’m aware that what was done cannot be undone. But … well. No harm in, in, giving the new humans a little precautionary nudge, surely…’

‘Angel…’ says Crawly slowly. A corner of his lip is curling up.

Aziraphale coughs. ‘One might even say it is my duty, to guide humans towards ensuring their safety and protection -’

‘But Heaven didn’t tell you to,’ Crawly interrupts. He is grinning now, smile as blinding as the sunlight glinting off his golden eyes.

Aziraphale doesn’t reply, his cheeks hot. And then he _can’t_ reply, almost bowled over by the wall of emotion that slams into him from Crawly.

Aziraphale drowns in that cocoon of love for longer than he had last time, until Crawly brings himself back under control at last. Aziraphale misses the overpowering feeling immediately, and clings a bit closer than usual to the dimmed down version of it that lingers in the background after.

He physically leans a little closer to Crawly as well when they resume their walk, both of them red in the face and neither commenting on the Demon’s slip-up.*

(* The most Crawly says again is a yell of, ‘_Ducks_! Ducks are what takes to water’, painfully obvious in his attempt to cut through the awkwardness.)

They don’t touch, not even the brushing of shoulders, and Aziraphale’s thoughts are consumed by the sense memory of Crawly’s love. Of what it is like to drown.*

(* He doesn’t want to surface.)

Often, such memories are all Aziraphale has to last him through the slow drag of years. Crawly doesn’t always overwhelm him. Rather, the tangibility of his feelings towards Aziraphale becomes such a constant that his love is usually a peripheral factor of their meetings.

They run into each other in Egypt, amidst the panic and havoc that herald the impending fall of a kingdom.

‘Oh dear, this is quite the mess, isn’t it,’ says Aziraphale tremulously, gazing out over the mud-brick houses dimly lit in the moonlight.

Firelight burns brighter in the distance, towards the centre of the city. He will have to return tomorrow, or the day after at the latest; he has duties to fulfil. But for the time being, he is content, relieved even, to be sat next to Crowley* on the rooftop of the rather spacious house the Demon has apparently claimed as his residence over the past several years. For now, Aziraphale has had enough of Romans.

(* Aziraphale is yet unaware of the Demon’s name change, and will remain oblivious until some sixty-odd years into the future. He hasn’t addressed Crowley by name during this latest run-in, and thus it hasn’t occurred to Crowley, who leans towards a different sort of obliviousness, that he hasn’t brought his counterpart up to date on important footnotes such as him finally having realised that his previous signature was a bit too _squirming-at-your-feet_ish.)

Crowley just grunts and reaches for the clay plot of wine he brought up with him. He tops up Aziraphale’s cup, who he takes another sip of the rich _shedeh _with a sigh.

‘I didn’t agree with all of her decisions,’ Aziraphale comments, ‘but one cannot deny she was a force to be reckoned with.’

‘Hear, hear.’ Crowley nods.

’A queen among kings. It … is a pity that she passed so young.’ Aziraphale pauses, side-eying Crowley.

Crowley, well aware that he is being side-eyed, takes a generous gulp of the blood-red wine. He wipes the back of his hand over his mouth.

‘And in such a manner, too!’ Aziraphale presses on stubbornly. ‘Poisoned by a snake, rumours claim!’

‘Egyptian asps are potent.’ Crowley nods meaningfully.

‘Egyptian or infernal?’ Aziraphale asks dryly, finally cutting to the chase.

Crowley turns to him with a dramatic gasp. ‘Do I _look_ like a thrice-blessed _cobra_ to you, Aziraphale?’ he demands, his kohl-lined eyes round with his perceived offence.

‘So that wasn’t you that they smuggled into her, hidden in a basket of figs?’

Crowley gapes at him for a second. He bursts out laughing. ‘Is _that_ what they’re saying? Hell, humans! We don’t give them enough credit for their creativity, angel, I’m telling you.’

‘But,’ Aziraphale is confused. ‘I thought she was your assignment.’

‘She was, kind of.’ Crowley shrugs. ‘Hell ordered me to make sure the reign of Pharaohs ended quickly.’

Aziraphale stares. ‘Why?’

With a grimace, Crowley raises his cup to his lips again. ‘Expand the Roman Empire. This place will become a Roman province.’

‘Your lot has Rome?’ Aziraphale frowns.

Crowley loses his melancholic air, a slow grin taking over his flushed countenance. ‘Aziraphale, weren’t you working in Rome for a while? You’ve seen what those emperors and senators get up to, haven’t you?’

Aziraphale looks back over the mud-brick rooftops, distaste clear on his face.

Crowley snorts. ‘Yeah, lot of slots Downstairs for those bastards.’

‘Is one of them Caesar?’

‘Yep.’

‘Good,’ Aziraphale huffs.

Crowley’s gaze turns commiserative, taking in the Angel’s side profile. ‘Never forgiven him for Alexandria, huh?’

‘Do you have any idea how many _centuries_ behind in education that fire has put the human race?’ Aziraphale snaps.

His companion doesn’t reply but his eyes linger, and Aziraphale knows that if he were to turn and look, he’d find nothing but sympathy and affection in that gentle gaze.

They fall silent for a long minute, just drinking and taking in the deceptively quiet night, before Crowley speaks again. ‘So yeah, you could say I was assigned to her. Mind you, I didn’t need to do a whole lot of influencing. Once Octavian entered the picture, her life was set to spiral down.’

‘She didn’t go without a fight.’

‘No. Tough ol’ Cleo would never.’

Aziraphale glances at him. ‘How … how did she die?’

Crowley deciphers the unasked question left between the lines. His brows furrow. ‘Look, I didn’t kill her. I wasn’t exactly over the moon with my assignment in the first place. I mean, murder? Not really my style. But towards the end, I figured I could give her a little nudge into taking control of her own death. She’d lost control of everything else.’

‘And you suggested she let you bite her?’

Crowley snorts boorishly. ‘I _suggested_ she choose how to go, instead of waiting about for Octavian to parade her around. And she chose to go with style.’ For a moment, he looks almost proud. ‘A couple of sharp pins dipped in venom. Brilliant.’

‘So you didn’t - ?’

‘Oh for Satan’s sake, I didn’t bite Cleopatra, Aziraphale!’ Crowley rolls his eyes, exasperated. ‘Why are you so hung up on it?’

‘I’m not,’ Aziraphale insists. In all honesty, he’d just got the image in his head upon hearing the rumours of her death, paired with the information that Crowley has also been hanging around. He wasn’t _hung up_ on -

He stills. Crowley is staring at him, mouth curved up in an amused smirk.

‘Fancy the idea, do ya?’

Aziraphale’s mouth drops open. ‘What - no, stop it.’

Crowley chuckles low in his throat. Putting aside his wine cup, he leans back on his palms, head tilted invitingly towards the Angel. Aziraphale is suddenly very aware of the dark kohl lining Crowley’s glowing eyes, and the slant of his lips, red-stained and wet with wine.

‘Ask me nicely, angel, and maybe I’ll bite you.’ His voice is breathy, catching on the last few words; a jarring contrast to the confident smirk he’s wearing.

One corner of his mouth wavers. Maybe not so confident then.

He means it, Aziraphale realises, exhaling a breath he didn’t realise he’d taken.

Aziraphale feels it then, Crowley’s fluttering emotions. His love, which has been politely hanging back since they greeted each other, comes to the forefront; a shy nervous thing made all the more agitated by Crowley’s bold flirtatious action and his quickly dissolving confidence.

But the feelings don’t overwhelm Aziraphale this time. He doesn’t drown, doesn’t feel the love try to take over his very essence. For a split second, Aziraphale flounders, wondering with sudden despair if Crowley’s affections are waning after all. But, as his ethereal sense soon gathers, Crowley’s feelings are unchanged; still as real, still as strong They are simply under better control, given just enough reign for Aziraphale to feel their perpetual presence a bit more distinctly.

Pick up on his growing attraction despite his embarrassment.

His desire.

Aziraphale swallows. It’s hardly a new feeling, but it is more pronounced now - Crowley’s desire for Aziraphale, ever so closely interlaced with his love.

_Ask me nicely, angel_…

Crowley’s emotions settle and he leans back. Aziraphale remains as he is for several more seconds, attention torn between Crowley’s surge of desire and the quiet fact that Crowley had not allowed the full strength of his emotions to spill over. It has been an age since Aziraphale last felt that force, that drowning sensation, and he can’t deny, not even to himself, that he’s been looking forward to the experience again.

Crowley gives a little cough next to him. ‘Sorry, Aziraphale. I was joking -’

He hadn’t been.

‘- I got a little carried away.’

He had. But far from all the ways Aziraphale wants him to.*

(* _Oh Lord_, Aziraphale realises, stricken. He wants him to. He _wants_ him to.)

Crowley tips his head back, eyes on the night sky. The stars are out. Vivid memories come to him, of earthy campfires and stories of stardust, and Aziraphale shivers.

‘I … is this-? Are we … all right?’ Crowley’s voice is all nonchalance but he can’t hide the nervous twitch of his mouth as he looks determinedly up.

‘Of - of course.’ Aziraphale looks down. ‘Of course, we’re all right…’

They are not all right. They’re not - because, and Aziraphale can’t kid himself otherwise, he wants Crowley to lose control; control over his emotions, control over his force of will that suppresses his love, his passion, for Aziraphale.

He wants Crowley to unleash it all, every last drop of his affection and desire until they pull Aziraphale under, until he is drenched, utterly saturated with it, and still more.

Crowley is careful, always careful to keep what he feels on a short leash. It doesn’t matter that he no longer hides it entirely; he allows no more than the bare minimum to suffuse the air between them.

Except for the few times he’s lost control.

And Aziraphale wants him to -

His newfound realisation floods him with conflicting feelings, from want to guilt, and excitement to shame. He shouldn’t, oh but he shouldn’t wish for such a thing! For all that he’s accepted that Crowley can and does love, that his love makes Aziraphale feel special, that he can enjoy that love from a distance, their situation is still the same in that nothing can ever come of this.

They’re still an Angel and a Demon, Aziraphale tells himself.

They’re hereditary enemies, destined to meet on opposite sides however many years from now on.

And … they’re not human. Love and all its pleasures are for humans. That a Demon can feel them doesn’t change the nature of things.

There is an order to everything.

But here is Aziraphale, wishing for Crowley to lose control. Fantasising flirtations and all that they can lead to.

Perhaps, in a way, that _is_ what is to blame when Aziraphale becomes the one to slip up, a number of decades later, when he hears Crowley’s voice behind him in a Roman establishment.

For the first time, Aziraphale is the one who approaches, who smiles first, tries to strike up the conversation. He can see himself pushing boundaries, as if he were observing his human corporation detachedly from above; sees himself overstepping lines - ‘Oh let me tempt you to - oh no, that’s your job isn’t it…’ - and the damage has already begun because he’s clearly losing his senses and flirting.

That’s what humans call it, isn’t it? Flirting. Crowley’s done that with him before - _Ask me nicely, angel_ \- and Aziraphale absolutely mustn’t. He mustn’t.

_Stop, stop, slow down. You’re losing control._

He wants Crowley to lost control.

_Enough_.

Crowley doesn’t look like he’s particularly enjoying Rome. His smiles are less easily given, his demeanour less easygoing, compared to when last they met in Golgotha. But he doesn’t say no to Aziraphale’s invitation; he follows him to Petronius’ new place and Aziraphale feels his yellow eyes, barely hidden behind those small tinted glasses Crowley’s adopted, on the back of his head the whole way.

It doesn’t calm Aziraphale’s nerves a whit when the first thing Crowley asks, as they wait for their oysters, is if Aziraphale’s assignments have led him to Emperor Caligula’s notorious orgies.

Aziraphale tries not to choke on his drink. He puts down the cup.

‘That sounds a bit more _your_ scene, Crowley,’ he says evenly, trying not to give Crowley, who is clearly hoping to get a rise out of him, the satisfaction.

The Demon snorts. ‘I had absolutely nothing to do with those. Caligula was well into those by the time I arrived.’

Aziraphale nods. ‘I wonder if his falling ill really is what caused him to, well … be this way. The first six or so months of his reign were quite delightful.’

Crowley shrugs. ‘Who’s to say? In any case, it’s not my concern in an official capacity. I’m here to whisper a few final temptations in his ear - though, to be frank, the man is doing spectacularly evilly without any help from Hell.’

‘Hmm … hopefully, my job with Nero turns out a bit better,’ Aziraphale muses.

He lights up when the waitress finally brings over a platter of oysters, fresh and smelling utterly divine if Aziraphale says so himself. Crowley has wrinkled his nose slightly, eyeing the spread suspiciously.

‘Oh, don’t look like that,’ Aziraphale cries. ‘I promise you they’re absolutely scrumptious.’

‘I’ll take your word for it, angelus.’

‘Just try one,’ Aziraphale says, a bit flustered at Crowley’s sudden adoption of the Roman term for Aziraphale’s status.*

(* It doesn’t sound like his status, when uttered like that.

In fact, what Aziraphale has been staunchly ignoring for several decades is that Crowley’s use of the term ‘angel’ for him has no longer anything to do with what Aziraphale is.)

‘Ugh. Fine. Show me.’

At that, for a whole thirty seconds, Aziraphale feels ecstatic and victorious, in the way that humans do when they introduce their friends to one of their interests and said friends fall in love with that interest too.

But the moment he puts down the first empty shell, smacking his lips with pleasure, he catches sight of Crowley and his stomach drops.

Crowley is staring, unashamedly, at Aziraphale. His lips are parted and there is no disguising the raw hunger on his face.

Aziraphale guesses, rightly, that the hunger is not for the molluscs in front of them. His heart skips a beat.

‘Uh. Now you try,’ Aziraphale mumbles, gesturing a little hysterically at the platter.

Crowley is still for a long second. Then he reaches for an oyster, squeezes the lemon juice over it as Aziraphale had done, and raises it to his lips. His glasses do little to hide the fact that his eyes don’t leave Aziraphale for a second as he slurps up the soft muscle into his mouth.

He drags the tip of his tongue over his lips, slowly, as he puts down the shell.

Aziraphale realises he’s forgotten to breathe. There’s heat pooling in his gut, uncomfortable yet thrilling, and he fears Crowley can hear the pounding of his heart across the table.

A second passes, then two, three…

‘Y’know, I could’ve sworn I saw men doing the exact same thing with their mouths at Caligula’s little trysts. Only they weren’t doing that to oysters.’

Aziraphale almost chokes, the moment effectively broken. But his cheeks are still flaming and he reaches quickly for his wine cup.

‘Oh Crowley, really!’

Crowley is finally wearing a smile, but there is an edge to it. ‘Trust me, Aziraphale, you ought to take a look. Human _mating_ has come a long way since Adam and Eve.’

‘Crowley!’ Aziraphale chides, blushing. ‘Oh, all these thousands of years and you still tease me about that!’

With a chuckle, Crowley takes a gulp of his drink. ‘Oh, you know. Old habits and all that. Besides, I’m sure that you are wrong - the Emperor’s parties are definitely more _your_ scene than mine.’ He smirks, a hint of his old teasing grin taking residence on his face. ‘O’ Angel voyeur.’

There is a beat.

And then Aziraphale loses control.

‘Careful, O’ foul fiend. You bring up my alleged voyeurism so incessantly - why, one might _misconstrue_ your endless interest in me as a proposition.’

Crowley goes stiff. For a terrible second, Aziraphale can swear that everything around them disappears.

‘Why, are you _misconstruing_?’ Crowley says flatly. Sharp.

Aziraphale exhales. He puts down his cup. The _clink_ it makes is unnervingly loud. ‘Um, I …’

‘Careful, _angelus_,’ Crowley drawls, his voice mocking but his face is tight. ‘One might just take you up on your _misconstrued_ proposition.’

Aziraphale can’t think of a single thing to say. Crowley coolly picks up another oyster, the second and last one he’ll have. Aziraphale can’t help but stare at the way he slurps it up, the shape his mouth forms around the shell. Aziraphale bites his lip.

Crowley puts down the empty shell. He looks from the nearly full platter to Aziraphale, sitting stock-still in his chair.

He raises an eyebrow. ’Finish your oysters, angelus.’ His voice is silky smooth, dangerous almost.

Aziraphale's fingers tremble slightly as he reaches forward. Crowley doesn’t touch another oyster but nor does he look elsewhere as Aziraphale steels himself and steadily forges on to finish his meal.

He is aware, keenly, of how Crowley’s sharp gaze follows his every movement, tracks every flick of his tongue, traces every curve of his lips.

He can imagine, almost, the exact thoughts in Crowley’s mind, almost laid bare on his handsome face. All the things he wants to do to Aziraphale.* Just barely under control.

(* And maybe - Aziraphale cannot escape the thought anymore - he wants to do the same to Crowley.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So if all goes according to plan, the next chapter will be the last! I've had the final scenes planned out for a long time - really excited to get that out :D (Rating might also change because apparently I write smut now and I oop)
> 
> Thank you guys for the support and for sticking with me, even with my sporadic updates! Do share your thoughts on this chapter's developments, your feedback means everything <3


	4. the hands that made the stars are holding your heart. -psalm 139

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it still May 1 somewhere in the world? In any case, happy 30th anniversary to Good Omens! All my love to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman for giving us this glorious adventure <3
> 
> I know it took me a good while to update this story. I'm sorry, dear readers, and thank you for sticking around! I hope this chapter, which is by far my personal favourite, makes it up to you!
> 
> (Btw last time I said that, if all went according to plan, this chapter would be the final one. Fellas. All did not go according to plan. /shamefully increases chapter count/)

Aziraphale was there when the Egyptians constructed the Sadd el-Kafara, the Dam of the Pagans. He was not there for the whole decade it took to build it, but he caught the tail end of the project - that is, the terrible storm that washed away the majestic structure right before its completion.

He knows better than any other Angel the gravity of the phrase ‘the dam has broken’.

Aziraphale’s dam well and truly breaks after that fateful lunch of oysters with Crowley, millennia later in Rome.

It is as if the moment he allows himself to acknowledge that _maybe_*, he wants to have what Crowley wants with him, the self-awareness gains free reign over his mind. From then on, there is no stopping the raging river that is his thoughts; his wants.

(* Maybe … definitely … desperately.)

The Egyptians were too scared to touch a dam again for years after the Sadd el-Kafara. Aziraphale is not so much scared as overwhelmed.

He has spent so long making peace with the fact that Crowley loves and desires him. The creeping realisation that deep down, without even knowing it, Aziraphale has grown to reciprocate those feelings leaves him forever changed in a way he cannot undo.

Crowley’s greetings, uttered in that low voice he adopts when he appears at Aziraphale’s shoulder, reverberate in his chest like the rumble of far-off thunder. Crowley’s slow smiles, offered irregularly and without warning, enchant him like the glimpse of shooting stars in the dead of night. And Crowley’s words, soaring with joy or numb with grief, roaring with anger or soft with affection, ring in his ears long after they say their farewells.

Rarest of all is Crowley’s touch. The brushing of fingertips as they exchange wine cups; the grazing of clothed shoulders as they walk together; the caress of auburn strands of hair, blown into Aziraphale’s face by mischievous winds … not a single touch fails to light Aziraphale up from the inside, setting every nerve ending aflame.

Throughout, Crowley’s love for him lingers between them, as vast and infinite as the expanding universe. Aziraphale feels it as surely as the earth below his feet.

And he begins to wonder, a scared frightened little thought, _Would it really be so terrible?_

For a Demon to love an Angel?

For an Angel … to love him back?

The first time he allows the thought to occur fully-formed is nearly five centuries after Rome. He is standing on the summit of a mountain, looming over green rolling hills bathed in moonlight. Aziraphale hasn’t been back here in more than four thousand years. Not since the day he received his orders to follow and watch over the first humans, who were cast out from this very place.

It is here that Aziraphale sits down and buries his face in his knees, covering his head in his arms. Shaking uncontrollably, he tries to force the cold mountain air into his heaving lungs, gasping.

Perhaps he’s gotten too used to the world of humans that the unnecessary action actually helps to calm him down.

Too used to the world of humans, that he thinks he’s falling in love.

The way a Demon fell in love with an Angel, thousands of years ago, right here.

_Impossible_, Aziraphale thinks miserably to himself, cradling his head. And then, once more, _But would it really be so terrible?_

Because love is Good and Crowley … is not Bad.

Aziraphale knows it for certain now. It’s not just the conversations he’s had with Crowley for millennia. It’s the _temptations_ Crowley carries out. Aziraphale has, on occasion, seen their nature.

They’re nothing compared to the evil humans sow among themselves.

More often than not, Crowley’s mischief hides little blessings of their own. Inciting a fatal brawl between three men, so that the boy they were threatening could flee. Tempting a cruel lord to frequent brothels nightly, thus sparing his unwilling maid the indignity. Setting a street vendor chasing after his mule, allowing a group of starving children to steal apples from his cart.

Aziraphale had been with Crowley for that last one, walking down a dusty street in a small Armenian town. His disapproval at Crowley’s lackadaisical miracles - one to cut the mule free from his ropes, another to startle the animal to gallop away - melted into wonder when he saw Crowley smiling at the now untended cart. A smile of his own bloomed when Aziraphale saw two children, dirty and emaciated, grab as much fruit as their scrawny arms could carry before darting away.

‘Oh, Crowley!’ he’d breathed, turning to his friend with sparkling eyes. ‘That was awfully kind of you.’

Crowley, in usual fashion, lost his smile and sputtered all over the place. ‘Ehh urgh - wha -! I, they - ngk … _k-kind_? Pah! That-that vendor is going to be pissy all day and piss off everyone else and - and I just tempted little kids to _steal_!’

‘You fed them.’

‘Bad habit, stealing. Almost demonic, you could day.’

‘Of course,’ Aziraphale crooned, still smiling broadly at Crowley’s reddening face.

‘They might even grow up to become professional thieves. Earn me a commendation, that would.’

'Or they might grow up to help others in their situation, having known the hardships of poverty.’

‘You dream big, angel,’ Crowley drawled, resuming their walk with an uncaring gesture. ‘Want to bet money on it?’

Aziraphale chuckled, falling into step with him. ‘What would be the point? Money has never been an issue for us.’ Even as he spoke, he breathed a small blessing towards the two children, ensuring they would not go hungry.*

(* Fifteen years later, the two orphaned siblings will strike terror into the hearts of the Armenian elite, who will try in vain to protect their hoarded riches from the silent thieves that move as shadows in the night. Every morning, the poor and homeless will wake up to small piles of coin and food, and they will sing the praises of the silent heroes that come as blessings in the night.

Crowley mentions only the first part in his reports to Hell; Aziraphale only the second to Heaven. They both receive commendations.)

Now, sitting on top of what was once a Garden, Aziraphale ponders on the Enemy who has never felt like an enemy, and feels his heart wrench with anguish.

He looks up at the sky, abounding with the stars and shy slice of moon that kept him company during his spontaneous flight across the ocean, leaving his current station in Persia to come here, to the east.

‘Would it really be so terrible?’ asks the Angel, voice just above a whisper.

He’s not expecting an answer. She has not spoken to him since he gave away his flaming sword - but She must have heard. The omniscient Almighty is surely aware of Her Principality that keeps company with a Fallen; the feelings he’s struggling with, the questions he hides.

She does not answer but nor has She struck him down for these transgressions. Surely, _surely_ that must mean it’s not such a terrible thing?

‘What would be so terrible?’

Aziraphale’s heart almost gives out and then immediately kicks into a furious gallop at the low, familiar voice that dispels the quiet of the mountain air.

He appears like a wraith, emerging from the deep shadows cast by the trees looming behind the rocky outcropping where Aziraphale is sitting. His wings, blacker than the sky and iridescent in the moonlight, are out, indicating that he, too, took a flight up here.

To the place where they had met, so many lifetimes ago.

‘Crowley.’

‘Aziraphale,’ returns the Demon, arching an eyebrow as he approaches.

He hitches up the hem of his dark sarong, the only garment he’s wearing, to bare his legs up to the knees as he folds them to sit beside the Angel. He doesn’t put away his wings, letting them drape across the ground behind him.

For a long moment, Aziraphale just gapes. He doesn’t know where to look; the dark magnificent wings he hasn’t seen in centuries, or the lean uncovered torso, glowing in the moonlight.

Or the slitted golden eyes watching Aziraphale unblinkingly. That Crowley is not hiding them behind eyeglasses as is now the norm, makes him appear so much more naked than his bare upper body.

A shiver dances down Aziraphale’s spine.

Crowley is the one to break the silence. ‘Back here to guard the Eastern gate, angel?’

Aziraphale stiffens, slightly in shock, mostly out of guilt*. ‘I …’

(* He’s not certain for what. After all, he has not been explicitly told that he’s not allowed back here.)

‘This was the place, wasn’t it?’ says Crowley, glancing around them, his eyes the only splash of colour in the monochrome night. ‘I’m not sure, but I think…’

‘I think this was Eden,’ Aziraphale finishes for him, very softly. ‘I can … feel it, almost.’

Crowley looks out from their rocky seat, his expression unreadable. ’Doesn’t look a jot like it.’

‘No,’ Aziraphale agrees. ‘But it has been so long. The topography has changed somewhat.’

Crowley snorts. ‘Bit of an understatement, that.’

Aziraphale suppresses a smile and follows Crowley’s gaze. If he is to say, this place is still somewhat of a garden. The forests of trees adorning the mountainside are lush and verdant, and Aziraphale imagines they are filled with birdsong during the day. He wonders if they are the descendants of the first plants that sprouted from the Earth, still carrying the ancient touch of Creation.

But other than the trees, there truly is little familiar to his old eyes. Where once there had been endless dunes of sand, the summit where he and Crowley are now perched plunges to define a lone mountain against the endless sky, overlooking heavily forested alpine terrain instead. The craggy land stretches on, occasionally blotted out by swathes of rolling clouds, disappearing into the horizon where the ocean awaits.

As if following Aziraphale’s thoughts, Crowley remarks gruffly, ‘Blows your mind a little, doesn’t it? There used to be nothing but desert all around and now … this is an island.’

‘Hmm.’ Aziraphale nods.

Crowley turns to him then, abandoning his study of their surroundings. ‘So, why are you here?’

Aziraphale blanches. ‘Oh, er …’

‘You didn’t come here millennia later just to ask questions at the sky, did you?’

The pointed remark makes Aziraphale shrink even further into himself. ‘Of - of course not! I … I’m,’ he coughs a little, ‘working here.’

There is that arched eyebrow again. ‘Here, in Serendib?’

‘Yes.’

Crowley regards him for several, uncomfortable seconds. Aziraphale tries not to squirm.

Then the Demon is rolling his eyes, looking unimpressed. ‘You’re a terrible liar, angel.’

‘Now, look,’ Aziraphale begins in an affronted tone. But then his voice catches in his throat when Crowley suddenly reaches for him.

Long, slender fingers pluck at the soft, cream-coloured cloth of Aziraphale’s tunic, right over his left knee. Aziraphale feels the lightest graze of Crowley’s fingertips over his thigh, barely discernible through the fabric separating his flesh from Crowley’s touch.

And yet his skin burns as if branded and Aziraphale barely swallows back a shudder, his poor heart aflutter in his chest.

If Crowley knows the effect what he’s done has on Aziraphale, he gives no indication as he says, without missing a beat,

‘Nobody around here wears this. _You_ were in the middle east.’

Aziraphale shuts his mouth, abashed at having been caught in his lie.

‘D’you even know what the people here wear?’

‘Um…’

‘Well, take a good look ’cause unlike you, I actually am working here,’ says Crowley, gesturing at himself.With a scoff, he adds, ‘Even if I weren’t, I’d put in a little more effort into a lie.’

Aziraphale barely hears the last half of what Crowley said. At the casual invitation to _look_, Aziraphale finds himself quite unable to do little else but take in the sight of Crowley.

He is wearing his hair longer again, the curls dipping past his shoulders. The thick mane is tied at the nape of his neck with a thin strip of cloth, but loose strands fall about his face, swaying in the wind. The dim light mutes the fiery red to darker hues, though nowhere near as dark as his black wings; the downy plumage is shiny and so much more well-groomed than Aziraphale’s own. He wonders what it would feel like to touch them, to run his fingers through that long hair and smooth down the sleek feathers.

Catching his own dangerous thoughts, Aziraphale drops his gaze only for his eyes to land on Crowley’s black sarong. Granted, it is what Crowley sardonically told him to take a _good look_ at, but closer observation sends the blood rushing to his face. The dark garment, perhaps made of cotton or a similar breathy material, is wrapped low around Crowley’s hips. Where it would normally reach his ankles, the material is now bunched up around his thighs, allowing Crowley to sit cross-legged and exposing the graceful line of his shins. There is a scale-like quality to the underside of his bare feet, smudged with dirt.

Blushing, Aziraphale looks up - only to become even more acutely aware that above the waist, Crowley is naked.

It should not be a big deal. They have seen each other nude before, often with appropriate genitals as they tried to blend in at certain human establishments. But nakedness is a different thing to consider when certain feelings are playing into the equation.

Aziraphale can now appreciate Crowley’s reaction when he first saw the Angel nude in a Roman bathhouse. For a few seconds, Crowley had stared so hard that Aziraphale felt more flustered that he could every remember being. And then Crowley had tried to avoid looking his way for the rest of the time they were inside. Throughout, Aziraphale had felt Crowley’s agitated emotions, his ever present sense of love thick with the heady rush of desire.

As his mouth goes dry at the sight of Crowley’s pale skin, drawn across his whipcord chest that tapers down to slim hips, Aziraphale well and truly _understands_.

He wants to touch. Heaven help him, but he wants to _touch_. It settles like an ache inside him. What would it be like, to feel that lean chest under his palms, the sharp jut of those collarbones on his fingertips? What flavour would he taste on those thin, provocative lips? How many kisses would it take to cover the arc of that long neck?

And what would it feel like, to have Crowley’s hands on his own skin? Aziraphale has grasped that hand before, in rare handshakes across the centuries. The skin on those palms, he knows, is rough but warm, and the fingers spindly but carrying surprising strength. How would those calloused, warm hands feel on the soft flesh of his body? What would it be like to have those slender fingers on his face, grasping his chin to tilt his face up? Would that alluring, mischievous mouth fit against his own, or would it be jarring, incompatible?

Aziraphale wants to know. He is _aching_ to know, and his breath comes on a desperate exhale as he lifts his eyes to Crowley’s again.

The Demon is staring back at him.

Caught, he sits and waits, full of longing and fear, for what may come next.

When Crowley speaks, it’s not Aziraphale’s blatant display of desire that he asks about.

‘Why are you really here, angel?’

Aziraphale freezes at the abrupt return to the topic he has been avoiding. He looks down.

‘I just … I needed a break …’

It had been one of those nights without any blessings or miracles to carry out, and left to his own devices, his mind had, as always, turned to Crowley. Wandering the quiet streets of the Persian city where he has been living for several months now, Aziraphale had been overwhelmed with his recurring thoughts on humans and love and Crowley, the right and wrong of it all, and he had … just needed to get away from it all. His duties and what he’s _meant_ to do, just for a few hours.

He hadn’t had a plan when he unfurled his wings for the first time in too long and took to the skies. He’d just wanted peace, like there had been at the Beginning.

Perhaps that was what brought him here, Angelic instinct guiding him to where it all began. Nothing looks like it did before, but Aziraphale _knew_ the moment the mountain came into view as he flew deeper into this island; some part of himself, deep inside, whispering, _I’m back_.

It’s not back _home_, exactly, but there is a deeper, unfathomable meaning to this ancient place. It’s where he had first stepped foot on the world where he’s begun to make a home.

Where he’d first met Crowley.

The Demon hasn’t looked away from him. Aziraphale can feel his penetrating gaze on his bowed head.

‘D’you want me to leave? If I’m interrupting -’

‘No!’ Aziraphale exclaims, quickly looking up. Crowley blinks in surprise. ‘No, you … you’re not interrupting,’ he says, wrestling his voice back under control.

‘You sure? Now that I think about it, you did seem to be having a pretty intense monologue at…’ Crowley trails off with a meaningful glance at the sky.

Aziraphale winces. ‘No, nothing like that.’ And then, before Crowley can bring up the question he’d clearly heard Aziraphale asking earlier, he says, ‘How did you know I was here?’

Crowley shrugs. ‘Told you, I’m on assignment in Serendib.’

‘Yes, but I can’t sense any settlements for miles around here.’

‘No,’ Crowley confirms. ‘I’m stationed down at the western coast. I, uh …’ he clears his throat, ‘I felt you. When you came to the island, I mean. I felt you fly over and … well, it’s been a while, innit? I came to say hullo. Although,’ he wrinkles his nose in a sniff, ‘I was surprised that you came _here_. Wasn’t expecting that.’

Aziraphale bites his lip. ‘Have you been up here before?’

Crowley plays with the hem of his sarong. ‘A couple of times after I got this assignment. We’ve been around long enough to generally know what’s where, yeah? I vaguely remembered the Garden was around here. Couldn’t recognise it for shit when I first flew over, but it’s like you said; I could almost feel it. The place where it began.’

He falls silent for a moment, his face thoughtful.

He glances at the Angel. ‘So what’s got your tunic in such a knot that you needed a metaphorical start-over?’

The question startles Aziraphale somewhat. He hasn’t considered it like that before.

‘I suppose I was hoping to find … answers,’ he finally admits in a whisper.

Crowley’s eyebrows shoot up. ‘So you were asking questions, then.’ He almost sounds awed.

’N-no, not - not really,’ Aziraphale stammers.

‘Dangerous thing, asking questions,’ Crowley murmurs, his eyes intense as he looks at Aziraphale.

‘I … I wasn’ -’

‘Did you get your answers?’ Crowley interrupts. ‘Not from Her, she’s not the type to reply,’ he adds blithely, and Aziraphale has to stifle a gasp at his bluntness. ‘But there are other places to look for answers, y’know.’

‘Like where?’ Aziraphale asks in spite of himself.

Crowley rests his elbows on his thighs, leaning forward. ‘Like yourself.’

Aziraphale stills.

‘Whatever it is you’re looking for, have you tried asking yourself?’

The question, sounding so simple and straightforward, eats away at his insides. If Aziraphale were to ask none but _himself_ what _he_ wants, he is quite certain he knows where that would lead. But factor in his duty to Heaven, what is expected of him, the whole dilemma of what is supposed to be right and what isn’t … He cannot just discount them, surely.

And _they_, he now knows, would point him in the opposite direction of what his _heart_* wants.

(* Good Lord, is he really using romanticised human phrases now? Definitely gotten too used to the world of humans.)

Yet, every passing century has him doubting the alleged wrongness of being with Crowley. That’s the very reason for his question earlier. If She could just … say something. _Anything_ to alleviate his doubts.

But there’s the catch, isn’t it.

Heaving a sigh, Aziraphale mumbles, ‘It’s more complicated than that, my dear.’

Crowley regards him for a long moment. Then he is on his feet in one fluid movement, the sarong falling to cover his legs down to his delicate-looking ankles.

‘Come with me.’

Aziraphale looks up to find Crowley holding a hand down to him. His cheeks heat up at the offer to touch, so many, many years since a brief handshake that left Aziraphale looking flushed and feverish for a whole night.

Swallowing, he takes Crowley’s hand, inhaling sharply at the warmth that shoots through him as his friend helps him to his feet.

‘Where are we going?’ Aziraphale murmurs, only really thinking about where they touch. His heart sinks when Crowley lets go.

‘Get your wings out, we’re flying.’

Crowley’s golden eyes linger when Aziraphale unfurls them, observing the Angel’s white plumage much like how Aziraphale had stared at Crowley’s wings earlier. Aziraphale feels himself blush again, but all Crowley offers is a quiet remark of, ‘Hell, when was the last time you groomed?’, before taking off.

Aziraphale flaps after him, trying desperately not to think about the wings he definitely doesn’t preen as much as he should - or the idea of Crowley, with his pristine black feathers, grooming them for him.

The flight is short. Crowley skims over the trees covering the mountaintop, past the empty patches baring reddish brown rock to the moon and stars, until he reaches a spot a good distance from the outcropping where they’d talked. The canopy here is thick and Aziraphale senses Crowley’s minor miracle that helps the two of them descend through the trees, landing in darkness.

‘You don’t need light to see, yeah?’ Crowley’s eyes are pinpricks of yellow glinting at him.

‘Of course, not,’ Aziraphale replies primly.

‘All right. It’s over here. I found it while I was exploring on an earlier visit.’

Crowley leads him on foot for a few minutes, stepping over fallen branches and twisting roots, to a rockier area, where relatively fewer trees grew from the hard ground. The canopy overhead thinsvery slightly, allowing a few narrow shafts of moonlight to pierce the blackness of the hushed forest.

Stopping, Crowley crouches down, gesturing for Aziraphale to look at something.

Standing beside the Demon, Aziraphale squints down at the rock, wondering what he’s meant to see. It takes him a few seconds.

‘Oh,’ Aziraphale breathes.

‘Humans haven’t been up here,’ Crowley says very quietly. ‘If they had, we would’ve sensed traces left over from them. No one has been here in thousands of years. Maybe,’ he looks meaningfully up at Aziraphale, ‘not even in four and a half thousand.’

With a sharp exhale, Aziraphale kneels beside him. In unison, they look back at the traces in the rock, outlining a single human footprint.

‘Do you really believe it belonged to one of them?’ Aziraphale breathes. ‘Adam or Eve?’*

(* They’d had longer lifespans than humans nowadays, but it has been aeons since Aziraphale lost them. That’s how he feels about them; they were his first charges, the ones he’d personally looked after, and they were his first loss when old age finally claimed their mortality. To speak their names again, here in the place where the world began and beside the one who’d stood by his side, sends an old ache through him.)

‘Can’t imagine who else it could belong to,’ says Crowley. He tilts his head. ‘Think it mighta been Adam’s. From the size.’

‘Incredible,’ Aziraphale whispers. He reaches down to caress the print, feeling the edges of the rock smoothed over with age and exposure. It might have been mud once, hardened and fossilised over the slow drag of years.

He doesn’t think twice, With a breath, Aziraphale blesses it, ensuring that the print will stand the test of time.

Crowley stares at him.

‘I think it’s important,’ Aziraphale explains. ’To preserve a memory of where all this came from.’

‘Right.’

Aziraphale finally looks up, offering Crowley a soft smile. ‘Thank you for showing this to me.’

‘There’s a reason I did,’ says Crowley. ‘It’s like you said, it’s where it all began, yeah? But think about it, Aziraphale. Would the humans or the world be where they are now, if the first two didn't make the choice they did?’

At Aziraphale’s sharp intake of breath, Crowley narrows his eyes. ‘No, don’t look at me like that. I tempted them, yes, because it was my job. But all I did was point out an option they already had. They made the decision themselves, angel, and look how far the humans have come.’

Aziraphale swallows, taking in his words.

‘You say it’s all ineffable. Would She really have allowed all that to happen if they absolutely weren’t meant to?’

Crowley has turned to face the Angel fully. ‘They made a choice and found answers for themselves. Perhaps you ought to do the same.’

Silence falls between them, save for Aziraphale’s shaky breathing as he looks back down at the unassuming footprint left behind by someone who’d made a choice. Crowley’s reasoning has taken Aziraphale right back to his thoughts earlier, just before the Demon arrived -

Has She not struck him down yet, for carrying feelings an Angel is not meant to or asking questions no other Angel has, because it really is not that terrible a thing?

Is he allowed to make this choice, as the first humans were? Is he meant to be here, with Crowley?*

Just as, maybe, he had been meant to give away his flaming sword? He hadn’t been struck down for that. Or to befriend the Demon beside him? He hasn’t been struck down for that, either.

His bosses Up There may not know, but She must. And She’s allowed it, hasn’t She.

Maybe he _can_…

Heart pounding, Aziraphale faces Crowley. He hasn’t moved, watching the Angel with patient, curious eyes. In the quiet, Aziraphale can almost feel the wind rustling the tops of the trees, and over that, a warm familiar hum in the air.

The one that’s always present when Crowley is with him.

Aziraphale doesn’t know how to address his own feelings, but perhaps he can begin with Crowley’s.

_And meet him halfway. _The thought sends heat flooding through him.

‘Why did you stop hiding it?’ That’s not how he meant to breach the topic, but when Crowley blinks and stammers, ‘Hide w-what?’, Aziraphale has no choice but to dive in headlong.

‘Your emotions … feelings.’

Crowley gapes at him, frozen.*

(* The phrase ‘deer caught in the headlights’ will not be invented for centuries yet, but it is an adequate expression to describe Crowley’s reaction.)

‘Angel,’ he whispers. Aziraphale has never seen him more shocked.

‘I can feel it, you know? Y-you … you said it yourself once, long ago. That Angels can sense … that sort of thing. You knew that.’

Almost imperceptibly, Crowley gives a nod.

‘So why did you stop hiding it?’ Aziraphale asks. The way Crowley is looking at him is almost unbearable but he couldn’t have looked away even if he’d wanted to. ‘I sensed you losing control over your, um, _feelings_. A few times*. But even when you, ah, tame it down again … you don’t hide it anymore. Haven’t for a while**.

(* _Many_ _times_ and ** _not for thousands of years_, to be accurate, but Crowley looks about to explode already and Aziraphale is not far off.)

Crowley remains still for so long that Aziraphale almost regrets asking. Perhaps he’s made the wrong choice, after all.

‘No point in that, was there?’

Aziraphale starts a little, surprised. Crowley glances at the footprint, at the rocky terrain melding with the forest, the darkness around them, and everywhere else before meeting Aziraphale’s gaze again.

‘I’d already given myself away. You would’ve known anyway. Why bother hiding?’

Aziraphale parts his lips and can think of nothing to say except, ‘Oh.’

Crowley’s eyes bore into him. ‘I never thought you’d bring this up. Why? Why now?’

‘It … it shouldn't be possible … for a Demon to have such feelings.’

The colour drains from Crowley's face. ‘Right,’ he rasps, beginning to turn away.

‘Shouldn't be possible for an Angel to have them, either,’ Aziraphale finishes in a rush.

At that, Crowley whirls back to him, pupils blown wide in his ochre stare. A loose strand of hair falls over his face.

‘Angel,’ he whispers. And then, swallowing, ‘’Course, ’s possible. You - you’re an Angel, you … you’re supposed to … love.’ The last word is barely audible, nearly lost in Crowley’s heavy breathing.

Aziraphale hesitates for a second. And then he stops hesitating.

He reaches up, carefully tucking back the strand behind Crowley’s ear. ‘Not like this,’ he breathes.

‘Angel,’ Crowley says again, and his voice is so soft and full of that emotion rearing up around them like tidal waves, drowning Aziraphale’s every sense with such _love, love, love_, that he almost sobs.

Then there are lips covering his, and what do you know, they are a perfect fit.

And he is not struck down.

Tears prick his eyes and Aziraphale squeezes them shut. He gives himself over as Crowley’s arms come around him, cradling him close to that warm, lean body as Crowley kisses him.

Aziraphale has been around humans long enough, indeed since the first two, to know how this works in theory*. In practice, it takes a little fumbling. He’s not certain if Crowley knows better than him, having no foundation to compare with, but a little adjustment to stop their noses getting in the way, and then a little more to stop their teeth from clacking together, and Aziraphale starts getting the hang of it.

(* He has and will protest Crowley teasing him for alleged voyeurism, but never before has Aziraphale been so glad that he chose to stick around and watch the humans.)

It’s still nothing compared to the sheer _feelings_ it brings him. He can sense Crowley’s, that faithful enduring love of his, embracing him as tightly as Crowley’s corporal arms holding him, gently, protectively, like he is something to be cherished. And Aziraphale can feel his own, his shy nervous thing of a love, for so long afraid to be acknowledged and hidden away, rising within him, filling him up and merging with Crowley’s.

Meeting him halfway, like Aziraphale is doing now.

_I love you_, Aziraphale wants so desperately to say, but his mouth is still otherwise engaged and Crowley doesn’t appear to be relinquishing him anytime soon.

Aziraphale doesn’t mind. He’s learning something new with every passing moment, from the way Crowley is moving their mouths together in a dance Aziraphale doesn’t know but falls easily into, and the way he coaxes Aziraphale’s lips to part, tentatively pressing the tip of his tongue along the seams.

Aziraphale makes a noise, entirely involuntary, at the new sensation, and Crowley takes it as an invitation. Wrapping his arms around Crowley’s neck, Aziraphale lets him in, breathless and shaking as Crowley carefully licks into his mouth, teasing past his lips and then along his tongue which rises up to meet Crowley’s curiously. He carries a faint taste, a sweet bitter aftertaste that Aziraphale thinks might be from a wine, and something else that feels entirely like _Crowley_. Dazed by the kissing, Aziraphale vaguely wonders what he is like to Crowley, if he tastes sweet like the dried dates he’d had for dinner earlier.

Whatever the case, Crowley clearly doesn’t dislike it because he’s not _stopping_. Aziraphale thinks he wouldn’t mind if they never stopped, and he clings harder when Crowley tightens his arms about him and begins to move.

It takes a moment for Aziraphale’s kiss-drunk brain to realise that Crowley is laying him down, and another to quickly fold his wings so they cushion him against the hard ground.

Crowley looms over him, kneeling between his legs to kiss Aziraphale some more before finally pulling off, braced up on his forearms. The wet slide of their lips as they break away is really _something_ and Aziraphale vaguely muses that kissing can be surprisingly messy. He licks at his lips, tasting Crowley on them, and blushes at the sight of Crowley’s equally wet mouth, hovering over him.

‘Is this the answer you were looking for?’ Crowley asks, his voice breathy.

Aziraphale considers. ‘I think it is,’ he murmurs. He’s not sure if he has all the pieces, but he knows that every earthly and celestial cell in his being wants this, wants _Crowley_, so he pulls him down into another kiss.

Crowley obliges willingly, sucking leisurely on his lips as Aziraphale, finally, allows his hands to wander. Leaving their obedient perch around Crowley’s neck, his fingers find their way into Crowley’s hair, carding through the long curls he has been daydreaming about for too long. They are as soft as he’d imagined them to be, and slightly coarse to the touch. Aziraphale pulls off the strip of cloth tying the hair back, and Crowley’s dark red tresses cascade around his shoulders,falling down to tickle Aziraphale’s face as they kiss.

Crowley makes a pleased sound as Aziraphale runs his fingers through his hair again, tugging on them experimentally. Smiling into the kiss, Aziraphale frees one hand to continue his exploration, smoothing over Crowley’s bare shoulder to caress down his chest. His skin is even warmer than before and lightly dusted with short, coarse hair. His lean muscles jump under Aziraphale’s palm and he can feel the beat of Crowley’s heart underneath his skin, a frantic pace to match Aziraphale’s own.

His finger grazes over a nipple and Crowley groans into his mouth, his black wings rustling with pleasure above them. Aziraphale inhales sharply, feeling the sudden spike of desire in the whirlwind of Crowley’s love surrounding him.

Slowly, he does it again, curling a finger to scratch his blunt nail over the hardened nub.

It elicits the same reaction and Crowley suddenly presses down on him, settling his body on top of Aziraphale’s. That is an entirely new sensation and Aziraphale gasps, breaking off their kiss. Crowley looks at him but Aziraphale quickly winds his arms around his back, trying to bring Crowley even closer. It’s new and pleasant and he _likes_ it, very much so.

‘Oh, angel,’ Crowley breathes, burying his face in Aziraphale’s neck, pressing the Angel harder into his downy cushion of feathers.

Aziraphale feels lips on his throat and he sighs with pleasure, tilting his head to give Crowley more room. The Demon grinds harder on him then, rolling his hips in an undulating movement that almost makes Aziraphale see stars.

Not because he’s made an effort, he hasn’t - but Crowley clearly has. And Aziraphale can feel it pressing, hard and hot, against him.

A low moan escapes him. As Crowley rocks against him again, Aziraphale wonders, dazed, if Crowley wants to have him here, in this place where love was made for the first time, in more ways than one.

The faint smell of ozone, accompanied by a familiar ringing on the ethereal plane, snaps Aziraphale to his senses. He freezes, cold terror seeping into him, turning the rush of heated blood immediately to ice.

Crowley pushes up off him, looking down at Aziraphale with wide eyes.

‘Go!’ Aziraphale chokes out, his voice cracking.

In a blink, Crowley has disappeared. Heart pounding for an entirely different reason this time, Aziraphale scrambles to his feet, quickly smoothing down his tunic. He has just patted down his hair when he senses his visitor behind him.

‘Aziraphale! There you are.’

He whirls around, plastering on a smile. ‘Gabriel! H-how … how nice to see you! I - I wasn’t expecting you.’

‘Evidently. Else you would’ve received me in Persia. Where you were stationed.’

Much like Crowley, Gabriel emerges like a wraith from the trees, and yet the effect is completely different. His white robes are pristine to the point they appear to glow, just like his wings, despite the lacking light beneath the trees. His purple eyes are cold and calculating, and a far cry from the easy smile on his face.

There is nothing warm there, nothing that puts Aziraphale at ease.

Did Gabriel see them?

Trying not to betray his fear, Aziraphale politely crosses his arms behind his back. ‘Ah, yes. Persia. I-I was in Persia, where I was, um, assigned to. Yes! But I -’

Gabriel suddenly frowns. ‘What is that smell? Was there a Demon here?’

Aziraphale stills, scared at first, and then relieved when he realises what that means. Gabriel doesn’t know. They can still escape the danger.

‘Yes!’ says Aziraphale quickly. ‘In fact, that’s why I am here! Word travelled to Persia of a - a Hellish thing wiling away here in, in Serendib. As it is my duty to thwart the wiles of the Evil One at every turn, I took it upon myself to come here and, er … thwart wiles.’

‘And?’ Gabriel looks expectant. ‘Were you successful?’

‘Absolutely.’ Aziraphale forces a smile. ‘We had a little … kerfuffle,’ he indicates his rumpled, dirt-smeared tunic, ‘but yes, I was able to … thwart him off.’

‘Excellent.’ Gabriel claps his hands together, looking pleased. ‘Right in the nick of time, too, it appears. If the foul thing had stuck around longer, I would’ve been happy to help you smite him.’ Gabriel looks wistful for a moment. ‘It’s been an age since I last smote a devil.’

‘Quite,’ says Aziraphale weakly. Of course any other Angel would smite Crowley if they saw him. And if it were another Demon that caught them -

Aziraphale’s blood runs cold. _Oh, Lord above_. What would Hell do to Crowley, if they found out about this?

Trying not to panic, he quickly changes the subject, ‘What is the occasion of your visit?’

‘Ah yes. Just a centennial check-in, Aziraphale. I went up to Persia, but seeing as you weren’t there, had to pop back Upstairs to check your present location. Chasing a Demon, huh?’ Gabriel looks around carelessly at the surrounding trees. ‘Bit of an odd, useless place for infernal dealings, isn’t it?’

Aziraphale says nothing. Of course, this place means nothing to Gabriel. He probably has no idea what it used to be once. And if he did, Aziraphale doubts he would still care.

Not like he does. Not like Crowley does.

‘Anyway, all good?’ Gabriel rounds on him again.

‘Jolly good.’ Aziraphale smiles.

‘Very well, then.’ Gabriel makes to leave, but then abruptly turns back. ‘Ah! One more thing. It is the five hundredth year since the Crucifixion.’

‘Oh?’ Aziraphale is aware of the fact. The memory of that day still leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

‘In less than a century, there will be the coming of the last Prophet.’

At that, Aziraphale automatically straightens, prepared to receive instruction.

‘You will be there in Mecca, to watch over him from his birth until he comes into his prophethood.’

‘Mecca. Understood. Uh, when-?’

‘Oh, you still have some seventy odd years. And other assignments before that, of course. I’m informing you in advance because it’s the next major event…’ Gabriel trails off meaningfully. ‘Before the Big One.’

Aziraphale’s heart plunges. He knows what that means.

He nods, not trusting himself to speak.

‘All right, then. Keep up the good work. Smite those Demons.’ With another hard smile, Gabriel disappears in a flash of heavenly light, wings flapping skywards.

The silence that descends in his wake is deafening. It is as the forest too is frozen in time, still as the mountain beneath his feet.

‘Man, I thought the wanker would never leave.’

Aziraphale jumps, but before he can turn around, Crowley’s arms come around him from behind, his tall, lean body pressing up against Aziraphale.

‘And what an improvement in your fibbing! I’m impressed, angel,’ Crowley drawls, nuzzling at his nape, his chest pressing between Aziraphale’s wings.

‘Crowley,’ Aziraphale begins but is cut off when Crowley’s lips find his neck.

‘Now, where were we?’ he whispers, wafting hot breath over Aziraphale’s heated skin before his mouth follows.

Aziraphale shivers and for a moment, all he wants is to give in. But the smell of ozone is still permeating the cold air and -

He can’t take the risk. He can’t risk _Crowley_.

‘Stop,’ Aziraphale gasps, pulling away.

Crowley drops his arms, staring in confusion as Aziraphale whirls around to face him, now standing a good ten feet away.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘It’s too dangerous!’

‘Angel, he - he’s gone.’

‘And what about the next time?’ Aziraphale demands. ‘Can we escape then? It was too close just now, he almost found us out -!’

‘Is that what scares you?’ asks Crowley slowly. ‘What Heaven might do to you? Look at you, Aziraphale. You were with me just now and you’re not Fallen.’

It’s true, Aziraphale realises. He is still the same as he’s always been. But with Gabriel’s visit, he’s come to realise that Her will might not always be reflected in Heaven’s. He wouldn’t be standing if _Gabriel_ had caught them. And more importantly, there is the matter of …

‘And what about what Hell might do to you?’

Crowley pauses. ‘They … they won’t find out.’

‘Can you guarantee that?’ asks Aziraphale. ‘It’s not just a question of whether it might be an Angel or a Demon that catches us. It doesn’t matter. If one finds out, so does the other.’

‘Aziraphale,’ says Crowley, taking a step towards him. His face is pleading.

But Aziraphale backs away, shaking his head. His eyes are stinging. ‘No, we can’t, I … it’s too dangerous. I’m sorry.’

‘Aziraphale!’ Crowley shouts but the Angel has already taken flight, wings beating as hard as they can to bear him away from this place, this garden that’s no longer Eden.

The Egyptians didn’t build a dam again after the Sadd el-Kafara because they were too scared. Aziraphale doesn’t build one again to keep his emotions at bay because there is no point. Not when he can no longer deny them, the reality of their existence.

He cannot build up that dam again. But he can build a wall, between himself and Crowley. A wall to keep Crowley safe, from Hell. From Heaven. From everything that would seek to destroy him if they ever found out about his friendship with an Angel. His love for an Angel.

It’s for the best, Aziraphale tells himself, trying to convince his aching heart over the salty sting of tears.

He can build a wall and protect the one that means everything to him.

It means he cannot ever say the words he’d intended to give Crowley earlier when he’d been in his arms. But he can scream them into the void of his mind, where only he and She can ever hear them.

_I love you_, he thinks as he flies away from the lone mountain, vowing never to return.*

(* Aziraphale will return, more than two thousand years later, with Crowley’s hand in his, to join the thousands of tourists and worshippers making the pilgrimage up the mountain trails. The knowledge of this future might have been a balm for his heart, but alas, the poor Angel has no way of knowing that now.)

_I love you,_ he thinks when next they meet on a damp afternoon in Wessex. Neither of them makes mention of their tryst atop a mountain, nor the broken hearts left in the wake of their parting. Crowley invites him to an Arrangement and Aziraphale, frightened once more at the thought of getting caught, quickly says no.

_I love you_, he thinks another five hundred years later, when Crowley needles him about the Arrangement for the umpteenth time and Aziraphale finally gives in. He makes it clear, in no uncertain terms, that it is purely business.

_I love you_, he thinks when he returns from an arduous trip to Edinburgh, to find Hamlet a resounding success at the Globe Theatre. Aloud, he says a heartfelt ‘Thank you’, much to Crowley’s chagrin, and drags his grumbling friend to see the show again.

_I love you_, he thinks when Crowley whisks him away from a Parisian jail cell and the blade of the guillotine. In stories of old, rescued maidens bestowed upon their fair knights a kiss, but Aziraphale invites Crowley to lunch.

_I love you_, he thinks as he angrily storms out of St James Park, blinking back angry tears because how dare Crowley, how _dare_ he ask Aziraphale for this? How dare he even think about leaving Aziraphale behind, alone?

_I love you_, he thinks as he stares after Crowley, clutching a heavy bag of books to his chest, in the charred ruins of what was once a holy house. His wall almost collapses along with the church that night. _It’s not fair_, he thinks. _It’s not fair. I love him. I love him. Why can’t I have him?_

_I love you_, he thinks as he finally hands over a small flask of holy water to Crowley. He is tired and weary and heavy with love - his own and Crowley’s, which has never faded from the background, ever alive and pulsing even two thousand years later. He watches Crowley’s fingers wrap around the flask and thinks, desperately, _Please don’t leave me_. But in a way, it’s Aziraphale who leaves when Crowley tries to reach out for him once again. ‘You go too fast for me, Crowley.’

_I love you_, Aziraphale thinks miserably, as Crowley drives off into the night. _I love you unto the ending of the world_.*

(* And then the world is ending, and Aziraphale’s wall falls.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Serendib is the ancient name of the island country of Sri Lanka, and the mountain where Aziraphale and Crowley meet is Adam's Peak. Although I didn't make the full hike up, I have been there and it's beautiful. At the top, there is what looks like a fossilised footprint - many Christians and Muslims believe it belonged to Adam, Hindus believe it belonged to Shiva, and Buddhists believe it belonged to Buddha. 
> 
> What I'm saying is, I saw an opportunity and I ran with it, taking all the liberties I saw fit. Don't @ me pls
> 
> Also, we're toeing the M-rating at this point. Rating might go up to that in the next chapter, but I don't plan on writing anything explicit for this fic.
> 
> (Speaking of E-rated stuff, I got sidetracked by an Ineffable Husbands' [smut-verse](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546879), which is why it took me so bloody long to come back to this story. Check it out, if that's your thing? :) )
> 
> Make my day with a comment or hit me up on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/RV_Phoenix_Soar) or [Tumblr](https://phoenix-soar.tumblr.com) <3
> 
> More of my Ineffable Husbands fics [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=575567&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=Phoenix_Soar)


	5. in a sky full of stars, i think i saw you. -coldplay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally! We are the end of what I once foolishly believed would be a one-shot. In the same spirit, I bring you what I once foolishly thought would be a nice ~3K word conclusion but in actuality is a behemoth twice that.
> 
> There are also references here to stuff that went down in previous chapters. I hope you enjoy this one, folks! <3
> 
> **Please note that the rating has been upped from T to M**

It takes the end of the world for Aziraphale’s wall to fall.

The wall he put up to protect the one who means everything to him - without the world to give it its very foundation, the wall becomes meaningless.

Because, as Aziraphale comes to realise, he cannot protect Crowley if the Earth, the one place where they can be safe*, were to be obliterated in fire and flame.

(* Where they can have a _home_, be _together_.)

Aziraphale doesn’t dare admit it, least of all to himself at first, when he says yes to Crowley’s proposition to work together, an extension of their Arrangement, to thwart Armageddon. He lets Crowley list out reasons to save the world - dolphins and gorillas, old bookshops and Sondheim first nights, frou-frou cocktails with umbrellas and musicals that are not _The Sound of Music_ \- and pretends that’s why he’s agreeing to it.

In part, it is. After all, Aziraphale has grown to love this world and its inhabitants and delights as ardently as Crowley does*.

(* Crowley will vehemently deny it, the stubborn old thing.)

Yet deep down inside, Aziraphale knows the greatest reason is warm golden eyes and crooked mischievous lips - to have those eyes keep looking at him, those lips grinning at him, forevermore.

Or is that too much to ask for?

_It can’t be_, Aziraphale tells himself as the warmth is sucked out of Crowley’s car in the wake of the terrifying words, ‘Wrong boy’. He tells himself that again as they drive out of Tadfield in resigned silence, empty-handed and unsuccessful. And then once more as he closes Agnes Nutter’s book of prophecies, resolving to inform Gabriel and have Heaven put things to rights.

Heaven has to put things to rights.

Because it _can’t_ be too much to ask for the Earth to be spared … not when Aziraphale has denied and denied and denied himself his greatest wish for the whole of its existence. He’d denied himself for four thousand years because he believed giving into his heart’s desires went against Heaven … and then for two thousand more to keep the object of his heart’s desires safe from the consequences.

He has denied and hurt himself; denied and hurt _Crowley_. He has kept them both from love, the one thing among all of Her Creations that Aziraphale knows, without doubt, is Good and Right - and to ask for the place where that love may be nurtured and flourish just _cannot be too much_.

_It cannot be this unfair, this cruel_, he tells himself.

He has to believe, for his own sake, that Heaven will listen. Heaven will do the Right thing. For is that not what Heaven was created for?

It has been millennia since Aziraphale began to comprehend that Heaven’s will doesn’t necessarily reflect Hers anymore; not when She has been silent since after the Beginning.

But he has to believe that his superiors will listen anyway. Angels were made to do the Right thing. They’ve already had a War*. There need not be one again.

(* Aziraphale will never forget the taste of ash in his mouth, the dead weight of his sword hanging from his limp fingers, as he watched the Fall of millions who’d once been his brethren. The burning wings and haunting screams. The distant stench of sulphur that reached him, just for a haunting moment.

Humans have waged thousands of wars since. Every single one brought back the devastation Aziraphale had felt then.)

It is this belief, held on to with desperation and pure stubbornness, that smothers his first instinct upon deciphering the Antichrist’s location, which is to tell Crowley.

There is no need to involve Crowley, he tells himself firmly as he walks to the bandstand where his friend, pacing agitatedly, is waiting for him.

He doesn’t need to involve Crowley because Heaven will do the right thing and take care of the Antichrist and put a stop to all of it. He doesn’t need to put Crowley in danger.

Not even if Crowley is giving up on Earth.

‘We can go off together.’

For the first time since he located the Antichrist, Aziraphale falters in his path. Not since Serendib, a memory that still aches and burns within him, has Aziraphale so completely and _desperately_ wanted to give in and say yes.

It’d be so easy, he thinks. Just say yes and take Crowley’s hand. Leave behind everything; the humans waking up to another day, oblivious to their impending doom … and this world, where Aziraphale and Crowley found each other.

No. The Earth can still be saved, he tells himself frantically. And he needs to keep Crowley out of danger.

Aziraphale repeats the words to himself even as his mouth says something else; things - _lies_ \- he’s held onto superficially because the truth, oh the _truth_ is something he’s never been able to utter, not without the fear of bringing the wrath of Heaven and Hell down upon them. Upon Crowley.

‘It’s over.’

And with those words, he feels it - Crowley’s love, that warm beautiful thing whirling around Aziraphale as if he were the centre of a maelstrom, shattering like so much glass upon concrete.

He watches Crowley’s face crumple, feels Crowley’s heart break as acutely as if it were his own - and Aziraphale realises, it _is_.

Jaw set, Crowley picks up the pieces and walks away, head held high in a parody of prideful insouciance. And Aziraphale wonders if Crowley will forgive him.

Perhaps not, even if they survived this. Not ever.

Aziraphale doesn’t need Crowley to forgive him. He needs Crowley _safe_.

He holds on to the thought even when his superiors dash his hopes, his _belief_, in Heaven like waves on jagged rocks. Despondent from Gabriel’s callous dismissal and reeling from the Archangels’ confrontation about _Crowley_ \- oh Lord above, they know, they _know!_ \- Aziraphale still holds on, because there has to be a way. There has to be!

_She_ will listen, surely.

She must listen and Aziraphale tightens his grip on sand fast slipping through the cracks between his fingers even as Crowley accosts him once more.

He’s not expecting it, Crowley’s sudden reappearance. He’d thought the earliest Crowley would ever meet him again was after Heaven* stopped the Apocalypse, when Aziraphale can explain why he did what he did.

(* Or the Almighty now, as Heaven’s bureaucracy has already made their stance on the issue very clear.)

But when Crowley stumbles and trips his way over a rushed apology and _again_, with so much hope, with all of his love for Aziraphale fluttering between them, asks him, _begs_ him, ‘We can run away together’ -

Aziraphale wonders why he’s surprised. Because _of course _Crowley is here. Of course, he won’t leave without Aziraphale, without exhausting every single chance for them to survive and be together - because that’s exactly what Aziraphale himself is doing.

He still has one last option to save the world, for them, for everyone, and God, he needs to _try_.

This time it’s harder, a hundred times more terrible, to hold on as Aziraphale watches Crowley give up, disguising his agony under a mask of anger. But his parting farewell, spat with dramatic flair, fools no one.

‘When I’m off in the stars, I won’t even think about you!’

Aziraphale says nothing. Between the two of them, he is not the only one who is a liar.

Turning away, Aziraphale sets his resolve and tries. He dredges up every last drop of his faith, turns his face heavenwards and he _tries_.

She doesn’t answer. He can’t even reach Her.

And Aziraphale, as the voice of the Metatron - useless as any one of them - fades away, realises that here and now, he has exhausted any and all of his chances.

Wholly and irrevocably out of options, all of them … except for the one he’s had from the Beginning.

Six thousand years of it and on the final day, as the empty ringtone echoes in his ear after Crowley quickly hangs up, as the enraged sergeant backs him into the divine portal, as the human world and his very body falls away from him, Aziraphale muses on how he is left with the only option that he’s always, _always_, had without fail.

Crowley. _He was right about everything._

They are on their own side - and it’s taken the ending of the world for Aziraphale to finally let go and accept the truth he’s always known.

_I wonder if he can forgive me_.

It’s not, by any stretch, the right time to ask that. But Aziraphale wonders, nonetheless, in a little part of his mind tucked away in the back.

He needs to return to Earth and find Crowley and do whatever it takes for one Angel and one Demon to stop Armageddon - but on the chance that they are successful*, he wonders if Crowley can find it in him to accept Aziraphale again.

(* Aziraphale doesn’t dare imagine what will happen if they aren’t.)

He wonders all the way up to the moment when he finds Crowley again, drunk from the sound of his slurred voice and thereby in a bar of some sort.

‘I lost my best friend.’

Aziraphale stills, feeling the phantom jump of a heart he doesn’t have anymore. It is a confession if he’s ever heard one, and although he cannot see Crowley, he can feel him - the rise and ebb of his emotions, as constant and turbulent as the tide.

From the top of a moonlit dune when the Earth was young, to a noisy liquor-soaked establishment when the Earth is dying, Crowley’s love for him is as warm and consuming as Aziraphale has ever known it.

And he knows his answer.

Before he leaves for his search of a receptive body, Aziraphale stays back to add, ‘My dear … if everything goes well, will you tell me that again?’

‘What?’ Crowley’s voice sounds hoarse.

Aziraphale smiles because he knows Crowley can see him. ‘What you thought you lost, and what you meant by that.’

He doesn’t need to see Crowley to visualise the shock on the Demon’s face. But Aziraphale says no more then except to tell Crowley to get a wiggle on.

They have a world to save.

~***~

After all is said and done, it’s quiet.

Aziraphale welcomes it, the tranquillity that permeates the air. It is as if the very Earth, despite the obliviousness of its noisy inhabitants, knows the fate that was avoided and is meeting its new future with contented peace.

It is not unlike what Aziraphale felt from the world in the Beginning. The _first_ Beginning, for now is a new start - one that Aziraphale meets not alone.

He smiles, unbidden and without restraint, at Crowley as they step out of the Ritz together.

He doesn’t think he’s stopped smiling since their successful thwarting of each other’s trials. Crowley doesn’t seem to mind, smiling back in that lazy easygoing manner of his.

They pause on the pavement and Crowley turns to Aziraphale, his hands shoved into his pockets. Their lunch had stretched beyond any acceptable period for one party to hog a table*, and the sun has long set, setting the sky awash in indigo.

(* None of the wait staff at the Ritz had made any attempts to shoo out the odd, perfectly mismatched couple. Partly because the flash bastard kept ordering new desserts for his frumpy partner for the duration of their stay.

Mostly because it simply didn’t, and never will, occur to them to do so.)

‘I’d offer to give you a lift,’ Crowley begins, ‘but seeing as the Bentley is back at my place, as you said -’

‘Oh yes, and it is in perfect condition from what I could see,’ Aziraphale assures him.

Crowley hesitates. ‘I could … I could walk you back to the shop? If you’d like.’

Aziraphale flushes a little at the sweet hopefulness that fills Crowley’s voice. He does want to see his shop, to go through his books and take inventory of the new additions Adam Young had so kindly gifted, according to Crowley.

But the bookshop will still be there later and there is something else Aziraphale wants to, needs to, do more. Something he’s rather wanted to do for a very long time now.*

So he breathes in the evening air, gathers his courage, and smiles at Crowley. ‘How about I walk you to your flat instead? And we could, perhaps, go for a ride?’

Even through his sunglasses, Aziraphale can feel the weight of Crowley’s stare. ‘You want to go for a ride? In my Bentley?’

‘Well, yes. Do you not wish to take your car out for - oh, what’s that phrase? - _for a spin_? You only recently got it back.’

Crowley’s lips twitch. ‘Never thought I’d see the day you’d _willingly_ want to go for a _ride_. Are ya gonna complain about my driving the whole time?’

His tone is teasing but Aziraphale fixes him with a serious look. ‘You may go as fast as you like, my dear.’

Crowley goes deathly still.

Aziraphale waits, holding his breath with a tentative smile, until Crowley finally nods and spins on his heel, heading in the direction of Mayfair. Crowley remains tightlipped as the Angel falls into step with him, but the silence between them is not entirely uncomfortable to Aziraphale’s relief.

When Crowley finally speaks, it’s after they reach his building and he’s inspected the Bentley, with appreciative whistles and a careful touch, from hood to trunk. Opening the door and gesturing at Aziraphale to get in, Crowley asks,

‘So, anywhere in particular you want to go?’

‘Take me somewhere we can see the stars.’

That gives Crowley pause. ‘Bit of a ride, that.’

‘Well,’ Aziraphale gives him a fond glance, ‘we have all the time in the world.’

Crowley regards Aziraphale for a long moment, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and trepidation.

‘Yeah,’ he says quietly. ‘That we do.’

Without another word, Crowley revs up the Bentley and then they are off, speeding out of London. He drives fast, as is his wont, but he doesn’t do ninety miles per hour within the city limits and not once does Aziraphale has to grapple at the dashboard for fear of discorporation. Aziraphale appreciates the consideration and chooses not to comment.

They are quiet again for most of the hour or so they are in the car. Crowley doesn’t say where he is going and Aziraphale doesn’t ask, content to watch the buildings outside morph into green countryside.

Beyond, night has set in. The twinkling of city lights is replaced by that of the stars; millions upon millions, stretching out across boundless empty space and even Aziraphale’s otherworldly eyes cannot count them all.

‘To live surrounded by progress at all times,’ Aziraphale says, breaking the silence, ‘makes one forget things sometimes.’

‘Hm?’ Crowley glances at him.

With a sigh, Aziraphale leans his forehead against the window. ‘Human inventions are truly wonderful. But I must admit I’m not always fond of the bright lights at night.’

‘What, really? Electricity is one of the best damn things they invented.’

‘They block out the stars you made,’ Aziraphale says very softly.

He doesn’t look at Crowley, but the weight of his gaze is near tangible. The sharp spike of his emotions too, an agitated fluttering thing that fills the car in that moment. 

Crowley doesn’t speak, instead turning the Bentley abruptly off the road onto another that winds its way uphill. Gunning the speed, he follows it for several minutes before pulling over smoothly.

‘We’re here.’

_Here_, Aziraphale discovers as he steps outside, is the top of a rolling hill, part of a chalky range from what he can see, spreading out in front and behind the car. To his right, the grassy hill juts out into a dark void, dropping sharply hundreds of feet to a beach of rock and sand, and beyond stretches the ocean. Vast black waters rush away from the shore to meet the faint skyline, and above -

‘Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven,’ Aziraphale recites, his voice hushed, ‘blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels.’

‘Who said that?’ Shutting the door, Crowley appears at Aziraphale’s elbow.

Aziraphale smiles tremulously. ‘Someone long dead, who was far more skilled than I at stringing words together.’

Crowley hums noncommittally, leaning back against the Bentley with his arms folded.

In companionable silence, Angel and Demon gaze out from their vantage point as the world spins, bathed in celestial radiance and nothing more. It’s enough, really. Even without the moon which had swiftly followed the sun beyond the western horizon, the stars are abundant in their light to illuminate the world.

_Because that’s how their beauty is designed_, Aziraphale remembers from an ancient conversation, spoken intimately into his ear in the golden ambiance of a fire long burnt out.

_And the Earth is the best seat to watch the stars._

‘Angel?’

‘Hmm?’ Broken out of his reverie, Aziraphale turns.

Crowley is gazing at him, golden eyes bared without warning. ‘Why did you want to see the stars?’

Aziraphale catches his breath for a moment, pinned in place by the sight of Crowley’s uncovered face.

‘Because … well. I haven’t seen them for a long time. Not properly.’ Aziraphale clasps his hands together, breaking eye contact. ‘They … they remind me of you. Every time.’

The quiet returns and Aziraphale doesn’t know what expression Crowley is wearing, reluctant to look, afraid of what he might see. He still has much to say and, swallowing, Aziraphale decides that he can look later after he speaks. Before his courage runs out.

Looking back at the sky, he says, apropos of nothing, ‘I … I do, you know?’

He can almost imagine Crowley’s slow blink, the rare one that appears when he’s taken aback. ‘You do … what?’

‘Like you.’

There is a sharp intake of breath, accompanied by another spike in Crowley’s suppressed emotions. Aziraphale hopes it’s not an adverse symptom.

‘I do like you. Very much so. Despite … despite what I,’ there is what feels impossibly like a lump in his throat, and Aziraphale swallows, ‘despite what I said.’

‘Ah…’

‘I am sorry for the things I said before the end,’ Aziraphale barrels on, trying to be brave. ‘I … I rather said a lot of things, didn’t I…’

‘You did,’ Crowley agrees, an odd inflection in his tone. There is a pregnant pause. ‘You don’t need to apologise, angel.’

At that, Aziraphale looks up, distressed. ‘Of course, I do -’

‘Wasn’t the first time you’d said something you didn’t mean or lied,’ Crowley interrupts, his voice pointed but not unkind. Frowning, he looks away. ‘I said things, too. ’Member?’

Aziraphale does remember. He wrings his hands together. ‘And I know you didn’t mean them.’

‘Exactly.’ Crowley puffs out his cheeks. ‘Consider it we’re even.’

‘My dear -’

‘Aziraphale,’ Crowley says. There is a finality in his tone, one that Aziraphale has heard before; the first time millennia ago, on top of that dune where _this, _his journey with Crowley, truly began.

‘I owe you many apologies,’ Aziraphale says, with quiet grit. ‘A lot more words -’

‘No, you -’ Crowley half-glares at him, looking frustrated. With a sigh, he tips his head back to rest on the roof of the Bentley. ‘Not tonight, then. I brought you out here to look at the stars, angel. To celebrate our freedom. Don’t -’

‘I wanted to come here for more than just the stars.’

‘Well, you can save the apologies. I _know_ you, Aziraphale. Don’t need to hear your words to know them.’

‘Not even … the ones I wanted to give you in Serendib?’

For a moment, Crowley doesn’t react. Aziraphale might have thought his hushed question went unheard, except for the sudden tension that laces every line of Crowley’s body; the stutter in his emotions swelling up like waves around them.

Slowly, Crowley straightens up. He turns until he is facing Aziraphale with his whole being, mere feet separating them.

‘A lot of things happened in Serendib,’ says Crowley quietly.

‘Yes,’ Aziraphale whispers.

‘You left.’ The unspoken _me_ at the end couldn’t have been more deafening had Crowley bellowed the accusation in Aziraphale’s face.

‘I left. Because I was not free to … neither of us was free. But,’ Aziraphale takes a fortifying breath, ‘as you said, we’re here to celebrate our freedom tonight. And now, I can freely give you the words I so wanted to, but couldn’t back then.’

Crowley says nothing, waiting.

‘I love you.’

As the confession leaves his lips at long last, Aziraphale breathes out, feeling as if the weight of the world - all of its six thousand years - has slipped off his shoulders. He shudders at the pure _lightness_ that overcomes him, closing his eyes to savour it for a moment.

Crowley hasn’t moved, hasn’t so much as blinked; he stares at Aziraphale as if he were seeing him for the first time.*

(* Aziraphale cannot know, but it was indeed the same manner of enchantment that had grasped a Serpent draped over a tree branch, back in the Beginning.)

Emboldened, Aziraphale continues, taking a step towards Crowley, ‘Oh, I wish I could project my feelings to you, so that you may feel the truth in them. I fear I do not have the words, my dear, to tell you how much I …’ Aziraphale gives a little gasp of a chuckle, trembling. ‘There are no words. I just … I do. I love you. I love you and that’s all I know to say.’

Trailing off, Aziraphale bites his lip and waits for what may or may not come.

‘Angel … I never needed the words.’ Crowley’s eyes are like fire, flaming at him in the darkness. ‘I can’t sense love like your lot, but I don’t need to. You,’ he exhales slowly, ‘you’re transparent, d’you realise? Absolute rubbish at hiding your feelings.’

Eyes widening, Aziraphale breathes, ‘You knew … even before Serendib?’

‘Long before,’ says Crowley. ‘Before you yourself knew, I think.’

‘You never said anything.’

‘You never said anything, either,’ Crowley points out. ‘Not until …’

Aziraphale nods, his cheeks pink. ‘I wanted to tell you properly that night. And now, I am.’ He takes another step, closing the meagre distance between them. ‘Crowley, I love you.’

This time, it’s Aziraphale who initiates. Cupping Crowley’s cheeks in gentle hands, he tilts his face up and sweetly presses their mouths together.

Even after all these thousands of years, Aziraphale has not forgotten the feel of Crowley’s lips on his own. Just like that night, they are a perfect fit, still; always.

He holds the kiss until he feels Crowley’s trembling breath mingling with his. Pulling away gently, Aziraphale meets Crowley’s eyes, allowing the tenderness he has struggled so hard to bottle up to finally break free.

‘Angel,’ Crowley sounds choked. As if Aziraphale had done more than bestow a chaste kiss on him; as if Crowley had not kissed Aziraphale within an inch of his existence the first time they came together, far away on another island.

‘Holy shit…’

Aziraphale smiles at him, eyes twinkling. ‘Am I going too fast for you, my dear?’

Crowley makes a strangled sound in the back of his throat. ‘Bastard,’ he mutters, but his lips are curving up and Aziraphale welcomes his smile as joyfully as the world greeted the new dawn that morning.

Aziraphale tilts his head up invitingly once more. A pleasant shiver dances down his spine as Crowley’s hands settle on his waist, and Aziraphale closes his eyes in anticipation.

Nothing but the breath of a cool wind caresses his lips.

Aziraphale looks up in confusion. His heart lurches when he sees the way Crowley is suddenly looking at him.

‘And what if Gabriel were to come down right now and catch us?’

_Oh_, Aziraphale thinks.

With a deep breath, he gently wraps his arms around Crowley’s neck.

‘Gabriel,’ Aziraphale tells him, ‘is a wanker.’

Crowley blinks, twice. And then a euphoric laugh escapes him, loud and jubilant.

Before Aziraphale knows it, he is in Crowley’s arms, both swept up in a hug and quite firmly pinned against the Bentley as Crowley kisses him. It reminds Aziraphale of the precious few times Crowley had pressed him up against a wall and _not_ kissed him, and he decides this development is infinitely more preferable.

Just like his memory of the first time he was kissed like this, Crowley is warm, almost burning to the touch. His mouth is a hot passionate thing against Aziraphale’s and the Angel parts his lips greedily for him, falling into that rhythm he’d learnt so long ago but never forgotten.

The touch of Crowley’s tongue to his is searing, setting his already wild heart galloping in his chest. Breathing hard and feeling quite like he is being devoured, Aziraphale tries to relax and sag against the car but finds it impossible; so hard is Crowley pressed against his front, almost covering Aziraphale’s whole body with his. Aziraphale decidedly does not mind.

Crowley’s kisses leave him wanting for breath stolen right out of his lungs, and a poor human heart that feels like it might give out from the frenzy it is being driven to. And still, Crowley doesn’t _stop_; he hadn’t that first time, Aziraphale remembers as he shivers helplessly under the onslaught of a very clever tongue, and Crowley doesn’t seem about to do so now, as if he is determined to addle all of Aziraphale’s senses until the only thing that exists for him is Crowley’s branding touch.

And that’s all well and good and absolutely lovely, Aziraphale won’t mind if Crowley keeps kissing him like this for the next century and a half, but still, he wants, he _needs_ -

Aziraphale breaks away, turning his face to tear his lips free. ‘C-Crowley,’ he stammers, breathing hard.

Crowley makes a sound somewhere between a disappointed whine and possessive growl at the broken contact. ‘_Angel_,’ he groans, leaning in to mouth along Aziraphale’s jaw instead.

‘Crowley, please,’ says Aziraphale breathlessly, shivering at the teasing flicks of tongue along his heated skin. ‘Please, I want - I need … y-you - you’re holding back.’

‘Hmm?’ Crowley’s surprise is palpable even through the hungry kisses he is leaving under Aziraphale’s left ear. ‘I thought I was delivering quite nicely, but if you want _more_,’ his mouth latches on to the sensitive skin, sucking until Aziraphale trembles, ‘I think I can manage that,’ he finishes, drawing back to flash an unfairly sensual grin.

Aziraphale, who has just had his mouth meticulously charted and his lips sucked and nipped to redness, is momentarily distracted by what _more_ could possibly entail. He blushes.

But when Crowley, smirking like the smug tease that he is, leans in to kiss him, Aziraphale demurs again. ‘No, it’s … I - I want to _feel_ you, Crowley,’ he says quickly.

A dark eyebrow rises. ‘Aziraphale, you’re gonna need to be more specific. ’Cause right now, the only way I can imagine _feeling_ _more_ involves a lot more touching and very little clothing. Preferably none,’ he adds, almost like an afterthought.

‘I should like that very much,’ Aziraphale admits, reddening further.

Crowley makes that strangled sound again and Aziraphale huffs a fond laugh.

‘But no, what I meant was,’ he licks his lips slowly, ‘your feelings, Crowley. You’re holding them back like you used to. It’s there but it’s not … it’s not all of it.’

‘Aziraphale,’ Crowley murmurs, staring at him.

‘I don’t need your words, either, my dear,’ Aziraphale tells him. ‘Not when I can feel them, like you’ve allowed me to feel since, oh, forever. But it’s not always that you,’ Aziraphale places his hand on Crowley’s cheek tenderly, ‘that you let it _overflow_.’

Crowley swallows. ‘The first time was an accident,’ he admits quietly. ‘I’d been so careful … and then I slipped. Like I always do.’

‘Do you regret it?’ Aziraphale asks quietly.

Yellow eyes, their pupils dilated into twin voids, bore into Aziraphale’s. ‘Not one bit.’

‘Good. Because I’ve never been the same since that first night. It made me, oh, it made me think of things I might otherwise never have contemplated or realised. Or … at least, I might have otherwise taken much, much longer to realise,’ Aziraphale allows.

Even if he’d failed to recognise Crowley’s love from Angelic sense alone, Aziraphale has the unshakeable feeling that he would have come to know it anyway. Know it, welcome it, and meet it halfway. Just like now. He has never been more certain of anything.

‘Hmm.’ Crowley leans into Aziraphale’s palm, watching him with those fever bright eyes.

‘So let me feel it again, Crowley, your love. Just like that first time. I want you to,’ Aziraphale breathes out shakily, his heart leaping in his chest, ‘I want you to _drown_ me, darling. Please.’

‘Angel.’ Crowley sounds awed.

And then his flood gates open and Aziraphale gasps with sheer joy and pleasure as that dear, cherished, unparalleled _love_ washes over him. The sensation is so familiar and so _missed_, the way every spark of Crowley’s emotions ignites within him, as if the very stars are raining down to sink into Aziraphale and merge with every cell of his being.

He is lit up from his very core, his essence soaked with Crowley’s love, and it is overwhelming to the point he can’t almost bear it and yet it’s still not enough.

‘Crowley,’ Aziraphale almost sobs his name, helpless as a fallen leaf swept away down the rapids of Crowley’s love and never has anything felt so right, so _freeing_.

It takes a moment for Aziraphale to realise that Crowley is kissing him again, sweet and warm and ardent as ever. He clutches on and lets himself be submerged, hoping to never again surface.

It is all that he has wanted and more, and Aziraphale knows he can never get enough. Luckily, they have the rest of Time itself to give and receive this, over and over until all the world is changed, and they will still be here.

_Together_, Aziraphale thinks and feels giddy at it all.

Crowley’s mouth leaves his lips for a bereft second before it reappears on Aziraphale’s neck, tracing wet, open-mouthed kisses that make Aziraphale’s pulse jump as quickly as the first time he was touched like this. Amid the waves of Crowley’s emotions, Aziraphale can now feel a lash of passion. That sense of desire, merging with the love around them, is as tangible as the hot, hard corporal evidence of it, pressing with increasing insistence against his hip.

A soft moan is drawn from Aziraphale’s lips. The last time, this had been cruelly ripped away from him. But not tonight. Not ever again.

‘My dear,’ Aziraphale breathes, tilting his head to the side to give Crowley more room, ‘would - would you…?’

‘Hmm?’ Crowley swirls his tongue over Aziraphale’s pulse point before sucking a kiss.

‘Would you bite me, please?’

‘_What_?!’

‘You once said,’ Aziraphale says breathily, ‘that if I asked you _nicely_…’

‘Holy shit, angel.’ Crowley is gaping at him, slitted pupils blown wide.

‘I said please.’ Aziraphale smiles, teasing and absolutely wanton.

‘You’re playing a dangerous game, angel,’ Crowley hisses, his voice dark with promise as he angles down to breathe hotly over Aziraphale’s neck, ‘asking a Serpent to bite you.’

Aziraphale shivers, feeling gooseflesh prickle his skin. ‘As it were, I recall it was the Serpent that offered first on a rather turbulent Egyptian night. I am simply taking it up now.’

Crowley nuzzles into his neck. ‘You sure?’

‘Yes,’ Aziraphale groans. ‘And I … I should like him to do a great many other things, besides.’

‘Oh? Like what, pray?’

‘Perhaps we could start by doing something about _this_.’ Aziraphale rolls his hips, rubbing hard and deliberately on Crowley’s unmistakeable hardness.

That’s all it takes. There is a loud _hiss_ and next moment, Aziraphale is crying out as Crowley sinks his teeth into the tender flesh between his neck and shoulder. There is a prick of pain and a cascade of pleasure, and Aziraphale moans, clinging to Crowley’s shoulders.

The Demon laves his tongue over the spot, soothing the bitten skin. ‘That’s gonna bruise.’

‘Good.’

‘I want to mark you up, all over,’ Crowley growls into his neck. ‘Show the whole world that you’re mine.’

Aziraphale chokes out a breathless laugh. ‘I am yours. I think I’ve always been.’

Pressing a kiss to the tender spot, Crowley leans back to look Aziraphale in the eyes. ‘Angel, I … I want …’

Aziraphale smiles. ‘I want it, too.’

‘Here?’ Crowley asks, swallowing.

‘I cannot imagine any place better.’

Crowley doesn’t look away from him, not for a moment, as he takes Aziraphale by the hand and pulls him away from the Bentley; as he draws him close, metres from the steep drop of the cliff; as he brings them both down to their knees, to lay Aziraphale down.

‘The grass might stain your coat, angel.’

‘Oh, but you will get the stains out for me, won’t you?’

Crowley makes an amused, scoffing sound, but there is a blanket beneath Aziraphale as he is laid down anyway, because, vehemently though he may deny it, Crowley is an absolute _dear_.

His lips are whisper-soft on Aziraphale’s skin, and they map every little treasure uncovered as his hands, gentle and adoring, unwrap the Angel as reverently as if he were the most cherished of gifts. And to Crowley, Aziraphale _is_, and he trembles as much from that knowledge as from Crowley’s unapologetic devotion.

‘You should know,’ Crowley murmurs into his skin, ‘I wanted to lay you down in the Garden, rightthere, right from the beginning.’

Too overcome to speak anymore, Aziraphale reaches for him.

Here is not the Garden where once a Demon had fallen in love with an Angel; and it is not the mountaintop where the Angel had allowed himself to love the Demon back.

But here, cushioned on grass as soft as downy feathers, and watching the shimmering dance of the night sky to the lullaby of whispering waves, they make their own Eden.

It is here, writhing under the very touch which had once sent stars scattering like pearls across the heavens that Aziraphale cries out in rapture, and his voice is joined in euphoric harmony by another; twin echoes resounding at the sky, just as there had been, once upon a time, at the start of all things.

They lie together afterwards, a tangle of limbs and warm bodies that will not be parted any time soon, smiling softly, with joy and awe, at each other.

But of course, Crowley being Crowley, it is not long before his smile inevitably takes a turn towards mischief. ‘So? How does it compare, angel?’

‘Hmm?’

‘To go from secret voyeur to enthusiastic partaker?’

Still hazy from bliss, it takes Aziraphale a long moment. ‘Crowley!’ he exclaims, hitting the Demon lightly on the shoulder.

Crowley laughs gaily, so unrestrained and happy that Aziraphale can’t maintain his disapproval, even as Crowley teases, ‘You shall graduate from amateur to connoisseur in no time.’

‘You are ridiculous,’ Aziraphale tells him.

‘Mm-hmm.’ Still grinning, Crowley props himself up on an elbow to lean over the prone Angel.

‘And incorrigible.’

‘Thanks.’ Crowley closes his lips over Aziraphale’s collarbones, sucking lightly.

‘And insatiable,’ Aziraphale adds with a sigh, though he is certainly not displeased.

‘Damn right. I have six millennia of repressed fantasies to make up for.’

‘Well…’ Aziraphale toys with a strand of Crowley’s auburn hair, ‘you certainly are not alone in that.’

Crowley pulls away from his neck to look him in the eyes. ‘Was it … was it everything you hoped for?’

And, for the first time, Crowley looks and sounds so hopeful and nervous that Aziraphale’s heart aches.

‘Oh, my dear,’ he whispers, stroking Crowley’s cheek. ‘It was _better_.’

Crowley’s expression melts into a smile once more. ‘Good,’ he whispers, leaning down to nip at Aziraphale’s clavicle again.

With a pleased sigh, Aziraphale buries his hand in Crowley’s hair and lets his eyes rove over the starry sky. Sunrise is still hours away.

‘You once mentioned,’ he muses, ‘that some of the things you created up there look better up close.’

Crowley gives him a puzzled look.

‘Like the nebulae.’ Aziraphale grins. ‘And you said you might take me to see them one day. Remember?’

‘Greedy little thing, aren’t you? You just want _everything_.’

But his voice is teasing and full of affection, and Aziraphale leans up to kiss Crowley, feeling like his heart might burst. He can feel Crowley’s love, soaring and crashing into his own; as unfathomable as the ocean stretching away below them, and boundless as the diamond-flecked heavens above.

‘Oh, darling, I already have.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Silently, one by one, in the infinite meadows of heaven, blossomed the lovely stars, the forget-me-nots of the angels._ \- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
> 
> I like to imagine that they are in the South Downs National Park in that final scene, but there’s no hard-set location really. This is just me being a hopeless romantic for these two disasters <3  
<s>I offer exactly zero apologies for all the sap thrown into this chapter</s>
> 
> Thank you, to everyone that read, left a kudos or comment, for coming along on this journey with me! This fic was a bit of an experiment for me, and I've had a lot of fun working on it. I hope it gave you just as much joy <3
> 
> Please leave a comment to share your thoughts, or come scream about Good Omens with me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/RV_Phoenix_Soar) or [Tumblr](https://phoenix-soar.tumblr.com)
> 
> More of my Ineffable Husbands fics [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Brelationship_ids%5D%5B%5D=575567&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=Phoenix_Soar)


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